A Distaff View of the World

9/11: National Day of Service

Does anyone still remember the day the jets hit New York City?

I stood in front of my television in disbelief as I watched the flames; heard the screams; saw people plunging to their deaths.

I listened in disbelief as the facts became known.  Islamist radicals with a pure hatred for America and in search of matyrdom and virgins had done the unimaginable.  The inhuman.

People fled through the streets as the towers fell, one after the other; ash blanketed Manhattan; police and firefighters and other first responders died in droves;

People wandered, shocked, dazed, looking for any sign of a son, a daughter, a husband, a wife, begging news reporters to help them; staring at lists of names posted in public places; sorting through debris for a wallet; a picture.

On 9/12, Americans were already picking themselves up, dusting themselves off and digging in to do what they could to help.

George Bush rose to the occasion and we were a country united.

Now Obama, without a peep, has taken over the day and declared it a National Day of Service.

Who were his advisors regarding this momentous decision?

You might be forgiven if you rush to think the obvious, like the 9/11 families.  But no, none of them were consulted.

Obama stayed true to form.  This day was created in a teleconference with Obama and, get ready for the list: The Apollo Alliance, headed by Czar and terrorist Jeff Jones, co-founder of the Weather Underground with fellow terrorist Bill Ayers.  You remember Ayers.  Obama and he were just nodding acquaintances, even as they sat on a board together and Ayers kicked off his senatorial campaign in his home.  Hmm.

And the list continues.  The Color of Change, Acorn,  AFL-CIO,  Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Eighty Million Strong for Young American Jobs, Friends of the Earth, Community Action Partnership, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, National Black Police Association, Mobilize.org,  National Wildlife Federation, Rainbow Push Coalition, Young Democrats of America, National Council of Negro Women, Urban League and a few others. 

These are the people deciding how America remembers September 11?

Why? is my first question.  And are you kidding me? is my incredulous reaction.

Obama managed to get this signed as a National Day of Service without a word of debate or a word of censure when we already have Labor Day.  What gives this man and his supporters on the fringe left the right to take over this tragic day in America's history?

And why would they?  With all of the things going on in this country with the economy and health care, why was this worthy of a teleconference and an under the table bill signing? 

September 12 is a day for pulling up our bootstraps.  September 11 is a day for remembering the victims, and for pondering what horror radical ideas in the wrong hands and sewn into weak minds can lead to, as the Bill Ayers, Jeff Jones and Barack Obamas of the world know all too well.

I think I've answered my own question.

Are we ever going to wake up to who this man is?

Eric and the Spooks

Eric Holder, our beloved Attorney General, doesn't like the CIA.  This week his knickers are in a twist because he believes that CIA interrogators might possibly have threatened terrorist detainees with faking their imminent deaths in order to gather intelligence.  Mind you, they didn't actually hurt them - or kill them.  They just acted as if they were going to.

I'm thinking he'd be in way over his head if he were working for an actual terrorist group where there's no pretending pain and death are going to be inflicted.  Heads and entrails would be flying.  And on camera for everyone to see, after humiliating statements were forced from the prisoners acknowledging their guilt.

How would Eric feel about that?

Black Panthers holding batons, blocking polls and threatening white voters?  Somehow that's all right in Holder World.  Even though we have their names, criminal histories and threats on video.  Even The American Civil Liberties Union was shocked by this display of hubris.

But not Eric Holder.

I'm sensing a short pattern. 

In Holder World, terrorists are the good people.  Terrorists are your friends.  Particularly when they keep people from voting for the opposition.  Perhaps a little rash, but it's just a matter of degree.  And intimidation is intimidation.

More evidence of an administration run amok. 

Holder is freelancing.  The president said the CIA case was closed.  Holder, apparently not feeling as though he's answerable to his buddy, charges in a different direction.  This case that Holder thinks is original doesn't have a new allegation in it.  These reports are from 2004 and 2005.  This was reviewed by the Department of Justice and by Congress for four years.  Anything improper was taken care of at that time.  He is on infertile ground, and cutting the legs out from under the CIA when their resources are needed to help the troops in Afghanistan now.  

Leon Panetta, CIA head, has asked Holder to back off.  At least six DOJ lawyers under Holder have told him there's no case.  And history tells him there's no case. 

But Eric Holder is a man with an agenda.  He's on a witch hunt.  And he hasn't found his little lovelies yet, so he's got to keep on trying.  Carl Rove is slipping from his grasp.  George Bush is disappearing from view 

So how many deaths on the ground in Afghanistan or in Iraq will the Attorney General's nonsense be responsible for when the troops can't get the intelligence they need?

I suspect Mr. Holder neither knows nor cares.

If I were Mr. Holder, I might look twice at that bottle of water before drinking it.

Or maybe he can roll right along because spooks aren't as bad as he makes them out to be.

The new Black Panthers are the ones making me nervous.  But then I'm just someone trying to cast a vote in my own country.  Not really interesting enough for Mr. Holder to concern himself with.  That's what got him where he is today.

Not So Cool After All

I've been watching Obama with a fairly critical eye.  No secret there.  Something about this guy got under my skin from day one.  While others swooned, I rolled my eyes. 

But I did wonder what it was that caused reason to leave reasonable people when it came to Obama.  What was I missing?

I might not have fifteen education specialties and twelve subspecialties, but I could see that what he wanted during his campaign was a basic dismantling of America as we know it and a rebuilding into some social experiment. 

But he was cool.  And who doesn't want to hang out with the cool kid?  Who doesn't want to be picked to be on his team?  Who doesn't want the cool kid to nod in his direction and smile?

But Obama, it turns out, isn't so cool.  And I'm not just talking about his 'mom' jeans, and terms like 'wee wee'd up'. Despite protestations to the contrary, he comes off like a guy who's lived a charmed life.  Grandma protected and adored him.  He threw her under the bus when it became necessary to establish himself as the 'Black' candidate.  He hooked up with Reverend Wright to get his street credentials in Chicago, but threw him under the bus to court favor with his more moderate independent voters.  And threw those voters under the bus days after he got into office.

This was a boy wonder.  How many times do you think anyone said 'no' to him?  How many times do you think he had to take responsibility for anything?  Even during his campaign, only one network in any way held his feet to the fire and attempted to investigate his life.  Fox News.

Who else could have gotten away with drug use and non-disclosure of academic records and school financing?  Who else could have gotten away with having such shady characters in his life and being questioned about it on only one network - a network he feared so much he appeared on it only twice during the entirety of his campaign and not once since.  Fox News is the only network that even attempted to do any investigative journalism. 

This man was running for the highest office in the world, and he was given a free pass by the American media.

I guess I'd be cocky, too.

But now we're seeing the results of that free pass. 

I had come to object to the rigorous campaign process because I thought a person had to be almost superhuman to get through it.  Everyone's life gets checked with a magnifying glass.  No stone is left unturned.  Grueling interviews and vetting  by the press and by the public.

Now I understand its value.

I understand it because we have a president who wasn't vetted by the media - who, on the contrary, had  the majority of the media on his side as a propagandist, and we're seeing the sorry results.

Nothing is his fault.  He has no idea how to take the blame, but is practiced at deflecting it.   Need a cheap laugh?  Seven months out from the election, let's take yet another shot at Sarah Palin.  His  audience, hand picked for the television cameras, giggles on cue.

He's a master of mocking.  His comedic timing during his sarcastic riffs on former President Bush, town hall protesters, John McCain, and Republicans rivals John Stewart on The Daily Show.  And after watching the intellectually dishonest selective editing on The Daily show which has become more and more like Keith Obermann without the jokes, one has to wonder where Obama is getting his material.

This man whom everyone thought was so cool; who is so full of himself that he publicly refers to his own mojo - has no idea how to be dignified.  He went into that office with no clue what it meant to be President of the United States.  The problem for us as a country is that he doesn't seem to be on a learning curve.  On the contrary, his constant whining and failure to take responsibility for anything; his ingrained need to be constantly on the attack against what he considers even the slightest criticism - is an embarrassment.

So, as Obama would say, let's be clear.  Cool isn't about the way you walk; the way you talk; the way a suit hangs on a lanky frame or the way you shoot hoops.

Cool is treating people with respect; being a person of character; taking responsibility when you screw up and even when other people screw up if you're the man in charge.  Cool is not taking cheap shots at others expense.

Cool is when you stop listening to all of those people patting you on the back and telling you how great you are and start wondering why your numbers are slipping so badly. 

It isn't some great conspiracy.  People are catching on.  There isn't much under that well-hung suit.

A little introspection might do you some good.  And stop blaming other people for the mess you've made of your presidency.  I'm sick of it.  So are a lot of people.

Grow up.  You're the President of the United States of America.  Start acting like it.

Unintended Consequences

It seems like only yesterday I was depressed about turn the country had taken.  Obama and the Democrats were riding high.  Unimaginable bills were gliding through Congress.  The media, by and large, had turned over their credentials to team Obama long before the election. 

What a worthless lot.

Those few who were protesting the new cronyism and Chicago style corruption of the Obama administration were loudly called racists and Nazis and it worked its magic in marginalizing them.  And why wouldn't it?  Those hot buttons have worked for liberals in silencing conservatives for decades.

But then came health care reform.

Bang.  Zoom.  Just like that, an unmanageable group of people who prefer a life of going to work, coming home, playing with the kids or grandkids and watching television became interested in politics. 

Then came phony elitist Nancy Pelosi calling their attendance at town hall meetings 'AstroTurf' and referring to them as Nazis.

Then came community organizer Obama telling them to sit down and be quiet while he cleaned up the mess and did what was best for us. 

Excuse me?

Then came another Democrat recalling his hey day during the Civil Rights era and comparing the grandmothers and grandfathers crowding into the town halls to the Ku Klux Klan.

Those passive people who preferred staying at home rolled up their sleeves and headed out in droves to the town hall meetings and continued to go, night after night after night.  The more the media mocked them, the angrier they grew.

Team Obama's ratings began dropping like a goose full of buckshot.

As have the ratings at ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and CBS.  Down, down, down. 

Many Dems, some of whom have canceled their town hall meetings to avoid having to face their constituents and any form of reality outside the Beltway, are still trying to claim the public's anger at them is manufactured - even as telephone cameras capture SEIC and ACORN members climbing off buses in the wee hours of the morning to get the best seats at the first come first serve meetings.

You really have to roll your eyes at the intellectual dishonesty.  Or maybe they just missed the Dem ads offering to pay handsome $600 weekly wages to people to organize pro-health reform protests.  No one has found any ads showing anyone offering pay to organize anti-health reform protests.

Oh, I'm sorry.  Health Insurance Reform.  If one word doesn't work for Mr. Obama, we change to a more polarizing word.  Let's get those big, bad insurance companies, even though he cut a deal with them. 

Wow.  Those insurance company executives must be wondering, after all that smiling and hand shaking, how they ran into this buzz saw.  Poor guys.  Hope they got the discussions on tape or in writing.

I'm the one with the big smile right now.  I'm hoping that Obama continues packing his 'town halls' with friendlies, like the oh so cute little girl that asked the innocent question about all those meanies outside with those big bad signs.  How was he to know she was the daughter of a contributor and confidante?  Shame on all of you skeptics.  If that isn't transparency - well, I thought it was fairly transparent.

And I hope Nancy and her pals continue to call Amercan citizens thugs and Nazis and any other derogatory names they can think up.  I'll even help if they want me to.  I hope they continue to claim the fear and  displacement the citizenry is feeling is manufactured on every news channel and paper available.

I never would have dreamed Obama and the Democrats could have fallen so far so fast.

Thank you, Nancy, for being so out of touch and so, well, stupid about people. 

Thank you, Mr. Obama and cronies, for over reaching so dramatically that it got even my own mother yelling at the television. 

And thank you biased media for creating a skeptical American public who since this last election questions with boldness everything you say and has them doing their own research because they know they can't trust yours.

These are the unintended consequences of what the Dems have done in their efforts to isolate and ridicule.  It usually works for them, as in the case of Sarah Palin.  This time it backfired big time.

Still smiling.

Don't Tread On Me (or if you're a Democrat, AstroTurf)

People are showing up at town halls meeting with their representatives by the hundreds in small towns and by the thousands in big cities.

According to David Axelrod, one of our dear leader's chief political advisers and  a man who has grown rich from organizing manufactured anger that he himself named AstroTurfing, what is happening now is  not a grass roots movement. 

Marching orders, literally, have gone out to Axelrod's and Obama's usual robots to pack the halls and interfere, but it isn't working because the real passion of people who want answers from their representatives far outweighs any manufactured angst they can muster.  

Obama, the community organizer, made his bones sending people out on fake protests with their little matching t-shirts and hats, professionally printed signs, busing them where they needed to go, giving them catchy slogans  like "What do we want? Fill in the blank.  When do we want it?  Now." The media showed up and dutifully reported, never mentioning that it was clearly staged. Nope.  Nothing phony here.

There was a rally in Columbus, Ohio this past weekend that drew, by police count eight to ten thousand peaceful protesters who stood in alternating heat and rain for hours to listen to speeches about health care reform and a talk by Judge Andrew Napolitano.  It was barely mentioned by mainstream media, and when it was, they said the number of people there were two or three hundred.  They lied.

Let Code Pink show up with six protesters somewhere and there are more cameras and reporters than there are protesters.

But now we're looking out over a sea of gray and white hair, t-shirts with no slogans, no signs or a few hastily made hand painted ones and radical chants of "Read the bill" or "What's the rush?"

Oh, yeah, nothing grass roots about this.

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, her smile etched in granite, told the media these people  packing town halls were nothing but AstroTurf.  Brooks Brothers people, i.e. people hired by those nasty rich people to show up and mob the town hall meetings.  You remember those rich people.  The ones who sit around in their big houses and eat caviar 24/7, twirling their mustaches and are good for nothing except paying for her health care plan and most of the other taxes that keep this country moving.  Those  evil doers.

The mainstream media, thirteen of whom went to work for the Obama administration as soon as the election was over, began using precisely the same phrasing as if they  were reading from political  talking points.  

Most of the audiences listen respectfully, until something stupid is said.  One representative, with a straight face, claimed that the proposed new health care plan would  be running at a $6 billion surplus in  ten years.  The audience erupted into gales of laughter.  The same thing happened to Timmy Geitner when he was overseas and said the American economy was perfectly fine.

One man wanted to know why there was such a rush to pass this bill when it took Obama six months to pick out a dog for his children.

Seniors are worried about their end of life care, and they should be.  One of Obama's Czars, Cass Sunstein, believes in a Senior Death Discount.  He believes that young people's lives have more value than older people's lives, and that after a little counseling, older people will come to that conclusion as well.  As older people are becoming very well aware, end of life counseling is in this bill.  Here, dad, take the pain pill.  You don't really need the surgery.  Let someone else have it. Someone more worthy.

It starts out voluntary, but things beginning with a voluntary request have a way of evolving into a non-voluntary demand.  This has happened in Canada and Great Britain. 

Can you imagine being the parent of a Cass Sunstein and putting him in charge of your "Do Not Resuscitate" document.  You faint and they'll be removing your organs.

On his scale of worthiness, a smart dog is worth more than a retarded child.  He said it, not me.

You can't make this stuff up.  Read his book, "Nudge".  His purpose isn't to push people in a certain direction, but to take away options so that they'll be directed to go where he wants them, like shutting down paths in a maze until the rat ends up at the only possible destination.  Single payer health care., for instance.  Or our parents and then us opting for that extra dose of morphine instead of a costly life saving procedure that might give us an extra five years.

National Review On line editor at large Jonah Goldberg has said that the White House's response to the protesters is bizarre and fundamentally un American.  When Obama was running for office, he considered dissent the highest form of patriotism (in their little matching t-shirts and pre-printed signs).  Jonah thinks the White House has backed itself into a corner and is lashing out.  The president and his fellow Dems can't defend the Health Care Bill so they're attacking citizens in an act of desperation.

Now we have real citizens, genuinely concerned about what's going on in their country, and Obama and his minions don't know what to make of it.  They've never seen anything like this because they're so used to manufactured anger.  How could people possibly be REALLY angry.  And how do we put them in their place?  We refer to them as Teabaggers.  Or AstroTurfers.  Or Mobs.  Or we have Barbara Boxer putting her foot in it once again and acting bemused because the protesters are "too well dressed".  I suppose she could pull out some more resolutions from the NAACP.  That's worked so well for her in the past.

Is this woman really as stupid as she appears?

I'm watching some of these town hall meetings and I'm seeing a sea of gray and white heads; people of all shapes, sizes and colors; people with  papers and pencils in their hands; people engaged and who want answers.  And yes, people who have been watching their representatives sign massive legislation without bothering to read it.  They're confused and they're angry.

I'm watching huge rallies of families bringing their children, listening respectfully to speakers.  All people who have probably never rallied, protested or gone to town meetings in their lives.

I'm watching a president and many of his fellow Democrats dismiss and insult these Americans for doing what Americans are supposed to do. 

They have stepped on the tail of a sleeping guard dog.  It's beginning to growl and they'd better take heed. 

Don't tread on me.

Oh, Geez, I Forgot to Tell you...

Remember those taxes I, President Obama, promised not to raise on you, the little people, about whom I care so very deeply?  "Not a dime," I said.  "Let me repeat, not one single dime."

Well, I was a candidate then.  I may now have to recalibrate my words.

There are a few minor, hardly worth mentioning things in the House mark up of the Health Care Reform Bill.  (Pause for effect.  Look serious.  Crinkle forehead.)

1.  A tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage.  But that's a mere 2 1/2 per cent tax on people earning $9300 a year or families earning $18,700 a year.

2.  An employer mandate of 8%.

3.  There's a provision disallowing the distribution from Health Savings Accounts for over the counter drugs which is estimated to cost people an additional $8 Billion in taxes.

4.  The comparative research tax that will be levied on health insurance policies.

(Big smile for the finish.)

Now, I know I said there would be no new taxes on anyone earning under $250,000 - er $200,000 - er $250,000 - well, it was a long time ago.  Speaker Pelosi recently tried to reassure you that with regard to paying for health care reform, we would create a millionaire tax.  She knew many of you were nervous about that $250,000 number because you thought, hey, I might be earning that kind of money so you'll be taxing me.

But we feel confident in creating a millionaire's tax because we know none of you are aspiring to that.   That's like reaching for the moon.  Besides, we know you hate those millionaires who do nothing but sneer at the rest of us and live in those big houses eating cavier 24/7.  They're good for nothing but paying taxes on all that sweet money they earned off the backs of the poor.

My crack financial team went a little off the reservation this past weekend.  Timmy Geitner said,  regarding bringing the deficit down, "We  can't make these judgments yet on how we're going to get there... but the very important thing for people to remember is that we don't have a choice as a country."  Then Larry Sommers, White House Economic Advisor said on Face the Nation about raising taxes on the middle class, "It's never a good idea to rule things out no matter what."

This might have given the impression that I was willing to consider raising taxes on you, the downtrodden.  I want you to know that it would hurt me deeply to have to do this.  It would hurt Michelle.  I think of the effect this would have on my Kenyan aunt, living in the projects.  Poor dear. I would give her a hand up, you know, help her personally, if I could, but I'm just one man.

Michelle, in her own way, is reaching out.  Reaching out to family and friends.  Laura Bush had one assistant.  Michelle has put more than twenty on the payroll.  She has schedulers scheduling schedulers. 

I'm doing my best to bring in money to the Democratic party, the party of the real people, by selling ambassadorships beginning at $500,000 per donation.  Germany doesn't want to go along with it yet, but who needs Germany?

I just want all of you to know, though I may have to tweak things here and there, I'm trying my best to keep my word.  You may have to pay a little here and a little there, but unless someone actually tells you about it, you might not even know it's a tax.  Just some kind of cost of living thing.

I am changing things and I'm changing them now.  Just like I said I would.