The Meaning of Liberty

Just spotted this Michael Ramirez IBD Memorial Day cartoon via Power Line. Proves once again that very often a picture is indeed worth 1,000 words. Or more.

(Double click image to enlarge.)

Prudent Man: New Column in Washington Times Communities

Since budgetary and economic topics come up on HazZzmat more often these days, I've decided to remove most of my market and financial observations to my new column over at the Washington Times Communities, the site where a number of Times writers (and some new ones) migrated after that paper's severe downsizing about a year and a half ago.

The new column is called "The Prudent Man" and my initial entry explains why.

Today's offering is Part I of a two-part series on the very nearly criminally negligent IPO (Initial Public Offering) of LinkedIn stock to the general public--most of whom never had a chance to get a single share while the Big Boys got enough to buy several hotels on Boardwalk or, at the very least, a few tropical islands.

I'll be putting up one or two columns a week on the new site in what I hope is not a vain attempt to educate investors as to how the game is really played. And, if possible, to build a little pressure in Washington and in New York to stop the fleecing of small investors as well as the gradual erosion of the small businesses that still constitute the backbone of this country.

Meanwhile, readers in the DC metro area will continue to find my performing arts news and reviews in my Curtain Up! column, also at the Washington Times Communities.

Memorial Day: Remembering Iraq War Vets

It's always tough to find the right words to describe (what at least should be) our collective gratitude to the men and women who have defended our U.S. way of life both here and abroad for nearly 250 years now.

I.e., my late dad--a "Naval" Marine commanding a battery of big guns on the U.S.S. Bunker Hill--fired away at kamikaze Zeroes near the end of WWII. But he and his fellow combatants still had to endure the literal heat of battle as at least 4 of the fuel-lade kamikazes managed to crash into the Bunker Hill's flight deck, burning hundreds of sailors and marines to death and nearly sinking this great carrier. But both the living and the dead aboard the Bunker Hill were only a few among the tens, the hundreds of thousands of American heroes who saved us from the relentless drive of totalitarianism.

What can you really say about heroism like this except to sit back in awe and wonder at the kind of dedication that inspired this inner and outward courage?

Today, we can easily forget how we gained and retained our freedom at great cost. Most of us, this writer included, never had to face a barrage of kamikazes; or a war in the jungles of Vietnam where death could arise without warning from jungle trees or tunnels or by the hands of a Vietnamese woman or child secretly bringing a grenade to a friendly Yank's campfire; or an unendingly hostile and complex desert hell in a hostile Middle Eastern country where we attempted to introduce the radical idea of democracy.

It's this last (and still not-quite-finished) war that Walter Russell Mead discusses online today. Aside from paying slightly too much courtesy toward liberal pieties, I think he offers a lengthy, well-reasoned, and inspirational assessment of what political and military courage really takes on a day when we all should pause to remember. One of his major observations:

While the politicians washed their hands and hung up white flags, and while the press lords gibbered and foamed, the brass kept their heads and the troops stood tall.  And gradually, a miracle happened.  America started winning the war.

Click the link above to read the entire piece.

Obamanomics vs. Boeing; or, The Incredible Vanishing Workforce

This quote from Senator Lamar Alexander during a Hugh Hewitt interview, re: the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) attempt to shut down Boeing's new manufacturing plant in right-to-work South Carolina:

I don't see how the president allows this to go on for very long. Killing job creation in a jobless recovery isn't a great way to persuade people of your fitness for a second term.

Good point. It is astonishing just how easily the unions and the environmento-freaks pull President Obama's puppet strings. Boeing's vicious, Seattle-based factory union workforce has been notorious over the years for threats and strikes against its employer. When they happen--and they do--not only are the union members themselves out of a job. The entire Seattle support system suffers as do Boeing's numerous suppliers. The ripple effect has historically been wide-ranging and damaging to many sectors of the economy.

But no matter. Obama appointees of NLRB are actually dragging Boeing to court for: constructing a new manufacturing plant in South Carolina that will employ non-union labor. I.e., for engaging in capitalism, not to mention interstate commerce. Not to mention creating thousands of jobs directly and indirectly in economically hard-hit South Carolina. Now at this late stage, when the factory is already built and the moneys expended, the Administration is trying to deal a crushing blow to Boeing on the eve of one of the largest aerospace build cycles of all time: the building of the new Dreamliner.

In an economy that is deeply in debt and still reeling from the still-ongoing Great Recession (don't let the economics professors tell you it's over because it isn't for the average Joe), this administration, time and again, destroys many times over the jobs that it keeps promising to deliver. Let us count the ways. Besides the current Boeing brouhaha:

• The Gulf of Mexico fishing industry is still reeling because the administration has still declared large areas off-limits to fishing due to the 2010 BP oil disaster. But there's no hard evidence that tainted fish and shellfish are being caught in a large chunk of the off-limits areas. Cost: at least hundreds of jobs.
• Adding to the Clinton administration's brilliant idea of taking thousands of oilfield acres permanently out of production to satisfy the eco-freaks, the Obama administration continues to refuse drilling permits in Alaska and on America's East Coast. Meanwhile, the administration essentially has used the BP spill as an excuse to continue to deny new drilling permits in the Gulf. Cost: tens of thousands of new and existing jobs.
• The administration is making it tough to open new drilling for America's spectacularly rich deposits of natural gas, citing the eco-freaks' groundwater-contamination scare tactics. Largely disproved, these groundwater contamination theories are thwarting the creation of tens of thousands of jobs in America's hard hit Rust Belt and Appalachian economies and robbing the average American of a cheap and abundant fuel that could dramatically lower our imports from the Al Qaeda-Chavez oil cartel.
• With regards to the above, the administration, arguably, is deliberately goosing the price of gasoline so that Americans will give up and stop driving. Refer to candidate Obama's specific crap and trade reference to this, circa 2008. ("I'll make energy prices skyrocket.") This, of course, will also destroy large sectors of the economy and the jobs that go with them. All the better to make us even more dependent on the nanny state.

Such behavior is typical of this doctrinaire, Marxist administration. True Marxists, like Obama, really have no idea how capitalism works. They regard it as a system that creates wealth for the few, so it's their job, like that of Robin Hood, to take the profits from the few and give them to the many their supporters--like the unions and the ecofreaks. They have no clue that they're simply doing what other socialistas have done before them. They are destroying the golden goose that actually helps enrich us all by providing a comfortable living to the many.

Like Lamar Alexander, I'm not sure how much longer the U.S. can stand this before it collapses.

Patriots celebrate Bin Laden death outside White House

Well, here's a cheery video for a change. Credit not given, but obviously via CNN since Wolf Blitzer is doing the voiceover. BTW, nice job, Wolf, for just shutting off the microphone and letting the celebration speak (or sing) for itself. BTW, wait for the ad to run (I couldn't take it out). Then click the forward arrow on the screen to play the clip.

Bin Laden Death Confirmed by Obama

We just caught the live stream of President Obama's announcement on Fox News. Stories have yet to update, but should shortly. Some details are still not exactly complete, but it appears that this is the real deal.

Americans regardless of political persuasion should feel good about this. But leave it to Reuters to stick this snide paragraph in their report on bin Laden's death:

It is a major accomplishment for Obama and his national security team. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, had repeatedly vowed to bring to justice the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, but never did before leaving office in early 2009.

Yeah, right. Even President Obama, not exactly known for his classiness toward the Bush Administration, gave Bush and the military plenty of credit for the intelligence leading up to this operation in his statement.

The major media in this country has almost entirely lost its last shred of respectability over the last several years. The gratuitous paragraph cited above is yet another nail in the MSM's credibility coffin.

Bin Laden Is Dead. Really.

All I can say is, it's about time. News is breaking as this is posted.

Fox News will stream an apparently impending Obama presser on the story. As of Sunday, May 1, 2011 at 11:32 p.m., the Presidential announcement has yet to go live, but you know how these things work. It should run shortly.

From what I can glean from other reports, Osama was whacked by a mortar hit in a "mansion" outside of Islamabad. Apparently the attack happened a week ago and the U.S. has confirmed bin Laden's identity via DNA. Again, we need some official corroboration, but it looks like this is probably the real deal.

This might also explain the recent Predator hits Pakistan has been complaining about.

Wolf Trap Premieres 'The Inspector'

Read my recent review of the world premiere performance of the new John Musto and Mark Campbell opera, "The Inspector" at Curtain Up!, my review site at the Washington Times Communities. Quite an interesting show.

Slaughter in Syria

Roger Simon introduces a series of videos on Pajamas Media that give true and gruesomely graphic insight into one of the many Middle Eastern thug-ocracies and their repressive, Stalinist-style policies. This time it's Syria, only the latest in the rolling powder-keg of populist revolts in that unfortunate quadrant. Read Simon's intro first, giving his rationale for offering these horrifying film clips, since he also explains how they were obtained and at what potential cost to the filmers.

One of the frustrating things about modern reporting is the fact that we rarely, if ever, get news footage from countries that have proved to be our implacable enemies over the years. Part of this is due to severe censorship on the part of those governments. Part, sadly, is due to the cowardice of the MSM which doesn't want Americans to know that there's real evil out there. (Ruins the moral equivalency argument.) The MSM themselves often obtain this type of footage, but then they sit on it, offering weak-kneed excuses for not airing it. Simon and Pajamas Media are doing a public service by making these videos available. You'll never see them on CNN.

President Obama's response thus far to these unfolding events has been weak-kneed and equivocal. We'd like to think that he's providing cover for American covert ops in various Middle Eastern countries. But given his behavior thus far on these and other matters, including our shameful lack of cooperation with NATO in Libya, I have to wonder if the President is, once again, playing the post-colonial card to improve our "image" with leftist intellectuals abroad. In other words, all these problems were really caused by British-American imperialism and we have no "right" to intervene as people sort out the evil that we caused. It's a disturbing thought.

PJ Media's footage, airing as it is right now, provides a grimly ironic commentary on this Holy Saturday, the day when Christians await the commemoration of the martyred Jesus' rising from the tomb on Easter Sunday. Hopefully, in a secular sense, the Syrian people themselves will soon experience their own resurrection as a country by toppling the Iranian-backed Assad tyranny.

The Return of Sarah Barracuda

Sarah Palin is back, and how. AP reports:

Sarah Palin defended Wisconsin's governor at a tea party tax day rally Saturday, telling hundreds of supporters that his polarizing union rights law is designed to save public jobs.

Of course, the AP then goes on to trash Palin by innuendo and try to slant the story in favor of the lefty union trolls and thugs who inevitably showed up to trash the Tea Partiers. (And note: the AP puts Tea Party in lower case, another one of the hundreds of not-so-subtle, smarmy, casual digs anybody who's not on the left has to endure on almost a daily basis.

Dan Riehl has a little better idea than AP as to what's really going on here. Unlike the "professionals," Riehl has more than a clue as to what this story is really about: leadership.

It's ironic to watch so many so called establishment Republicans who seem to want to be leader of the free world dance their way around the more serious political battles of our time. They criticize, they pontificate, or editorialize, yet from ObamaCare to a budget deal, they're also careful to not too directly engage. The same can be said of them for what has played out in Madison, Wisconsin over the past month.

Whether it's talking about death panels, or blood libel, to now showing up in Madison - that's not former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. As I said to a friend and colleague tonight, wherever the current battle is, that's very often where you can find Palin. One of the first requirements for leadership is to show up out front. No one will ever accuse Palin of not doing that. Doing so also has an interesting side benefit for any would be leader. When you lead, people tend to follow and support you, even if not at first.

Riehl's commentators are interesting, too, although as usual they're invaded by the usual assortment of (probably) paid lefty trolls who trot out the tired blame-Sarah meme--you know, the one where she's a coward and a quitter for resigning as Alaska's governor. Which, as they well know, she did to prevent all the Democrat-supported frivolous lawsuits against her from bankrupting her family--which was their intention.

One commentator ("Judas Priest") runs with this, picking up the cudgels and letting loose the best anti-left diatribe I've seen in months. It's on Riehl's site, but I'm reproducing it in full here to save you some time.

You Liberals are terrified - TERRIFIED OF PALIN. You know full well she didn't abandon her governor seat, she was hit by so many frivolous lawsuits from the Left that she couldn't function as governor and do the will of the people. So cut the crap with your lies!
You want to talk about abandoning? OK, let's have at it - Obama abandoned YOU. And your silence SCREAMS hypocrisy!

GE pays no taxes. Silence from the Left.Obama takes us to war #3. Silence from the Left.
Sarah Palin called a t***. Then a c***. Silence from the feminist Left. Economy in shambles. Silence from the Left.
Foreign policy a disaster. Silence from the Left. Pump prices have doubled under Obama. Silence from the Left.
Food/clothing prices skyrocket. Silence from the Left. Over 30 Czars. Silence from the Left.
Obama loses Democratic party over 700 seats. Silence from the Left. National debt has risen to 1.4% of a Quadrillion dollars. Silence from the Left.
NPR busted in full bias. Silence from the Left. GTMO still open. Silence from the Left.
2 wars still on, one with record death toll. Silence from the Left. All Democrat Congressional and Senate representatives are millionaires, multimillionaires, or billionaires. Silence from the Left.
Obama ignores nuclear disaster now reaching our shores. Silence from the Left. Obama delivers oil rig contract to Soros-owned Petrobas so they can drill for oil in gulf and sell it to us. Silence from the Left.
Hundreds of waivers delivered to Big Corporations and unions for Obamacare exemptions. Silence from the Left.

Palin IS NOT running the country, neither is Bush or Reagan or Beck or Nixon or Limbaugh or the Koch brothers. OBAMA is. And he's doing a damned terrible job of it as his recent 41% approval rating is showing. So go back to HuffPo and tell them you need better talking points. And a better candidate next time. This one and his Liberal policies are Epic Fail. 

I have nothing more to add.

Al Gore: Warmist Jackass

He's ba-a-a-ack! Yes indeedy, Al Gore, aka "The Goracle." America's own Foghorn Leghorn and longtime pretender to the White House has surfaced yet again with the same old self-serving "global warming" rant. Ever notice? Each of Gore's successive media resurrections resemble trailers from those old Hammer films where Dracula constantly rises from the grave they put him in back in the previous film. In any event, The Hill reports:
Al Gore told young green energy advocates Friday that progress on global warming must come from a strong grassroots movement that can counter the oil and coal lobbies, which he alleged have “paralyzed” governments.

Gore – who compared action on global warming to the Civil Rights movement – was the keynote speaker at Power Shift 2011, a Washington, D.C. conference attended largely by college students.

Here's an audience tailor made for this horizontally-challenged warmist buffoon whose undergrad college GPA was actually lower than that of G.W. Bush, the alleged moron who beat Gore and his operatives fair and square in Florida in Y2K. Today's college kids largely learn nothing but the Marxist propaganda they hear in the average college classroom rather than actual useful subject matter.

Gore's agitprop included the following meaningless observation:

“It’s true that governments by and large have been politically paralyzed because the energy companies, the coal companies, the oil companies, the coal-burning utilities, they have spent enormous amounts of money and they have succeeded in many countries in paralyzing the political process,” the former vice president said.

Of course it's also true that the entire Lamestream Media, nearly all Democrats in Congress, and every lefty prof this or that side of the Pecos, plus America's Blatherer-in-Chief are all warmists who are casting a blind eye on the EPA's illegal overregulation of the utility and mining industries, all of which furthers the warmists' ends. Not to mention the ruthless lobbying of the enviro-freaks. I'd say these clowns currently have the upper hand over Gore's whipping boys of the day, the energy company lobbyists, who are ultimately on the side of all Americans who want lower-cost domestically produced energy whenever possible, not higher energy prices extorted by unfriendly regimes and speculators.

Not to be deterred, America's Clown Prince of RICO continues:

“There are four anti-climate lobbyists on Capitol Hill in this city for every single member of the House and every single member of the Senate,” Gore said Friday night at the opening of the April 15-18 conference.

“What is the answer for this?" Gore asked. "It has to come from you. It has to come at the grassroots level. It has to come from young people, and I believe that you are up to it and that you can do it.”

Yep, it has to come from young people. Young people who won't be able to get a job or pay back their horrendous student loans, courtesy of Obama, the Democrats, and the environmentaloids, all of whom seek to cut back on human reproduction by making living itself impossibly expensive. Young people who won't see a dime of Medicare or Social Security if the demagoguing of the Socialist Democrat Party continues unanswered and unchallenged.

Gore retreated for awhile after the East Anglia-led global warming fraud hoax was exposed two years ago. I guess he figures the coast is clear now, so it's time to defend his vast "green" investments again. Let's never forget that Gore has staked his entire economic future on money-losing but taxpayer supported boondoggles subsidizing "alternative energy" projects, none of which will ever generate a dime in unsubsidized profits.

I'm amazed that this blustering, self-righteous, idiot still gets any press coverage at all. Then again, I maybe shouldn't be. After all, it's that same "legitimate media" that anointed "The One," whose presidency is already threatening to dethrone the Carter interregnum as the worst presidency ever. Between Gore and Obama, it's a real contest as to which of these super smarmy politicos is actually the most drippingly condescending to and contemptuous of the average American citizen. I hope a few of these citizens at least will regain their equilibrium and common sense before entering the voting booth in November 2012.

As for Gore. It is increasingly possible that we will never again see a bigger, blowsier, more blissfully buffo bloviator in this century.

Cleveland Orchestra's "Don Giovanni"

Since I'm back in town, I've just now posted my review of the Cleveland Orchestra's marvelous, recently-concluded production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Check it out here in my column "Curtain Up!" in the Washington Times Communities online.

While your in the neighborhood, check out Politics, another area for which the Washington Times is justly famous. Good stuff here on both sides of the spectrum.

More on Media Matters' Illegal Exploitation of 501(c)(3)

You heard it here first--there's almost certainly a very good case to be made for revoking Media Matters' 501(c)(3) privileges, i.e., that organization's nonprofit status, with reference to its recently announced plan to destroy Fox News. This Soros-funded hard-left hate site is certainly violating the IRS rules that prohibit such an organization from active partisan politicking which is all it takes for a revocation as we explained in our earlier HazZzMat post here.

Now the Examiner's editorial page is picking up the refrain:

Being a C3 puts MM in the non-profit, non-commercial sector, and it also bars the organzation from participating in partisan political activity. This new, more aggressive stance, however, appears to run directly counter to the government's requirements for maintaining a C3 tax status.

Since Brock classifies Fox News as the "leader" of the Republican Party, by his own description he is involving his organization in a partisan battle. High-priced K Street lawyers can probably find a federal judge or a sympathetic IRS bureaucrat willing to either look the other way or accept some sort of MM rationale such as that it is merely providing educational information about a partisan group.

But in the IRS application for 501(C)(3) tax-exempt educational foundation status, Section VIII, Question I asks the applicant: "Do you support or oppose candidates in political campaigns in any way?" (Emphasis added).

Yup. Wonder if Soros' expensive lawyers or Media Matters' reprehensible David Brock thought of that before they launched this latest Gramsican-Alinskyite attack on free speech. If they look like Stalinists and talk like Stalinists....

Geraldine Ferraro Dead at 75

Frankly, I rarely share a tear for a Democrat these days, but I was sorry to hear of former 1984 Democrat VP candidate Geraldine Ferraro's passing at the fairly young age of 75. According to Fox News:

Ferraro died at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she was being treated for blood cancer, a disease she battled for 12 years, her family said.

Although she lived on the left side of the aisle, I always thought Ferraro conducted herself with class and dignity, particularly during the real estate scandals her husband was involved in--scandals that didn't help when they were uncovered during the 1984 campaign and with which Ferraro was clearly not involved.

After the Reagan victory in 1984, Ferraro mostly retreated from campaign politics, although she briefly tried to run for the Senate in the late 1990s, being bested, alas, by the absolutely dreadful Chuck Schumer who will probably plague us 'til the end of days.

Ferraro was pilloried by the press for her honest observations about the Barack Obama bandwagon in 2008. Unfairly labeled a "racist" for preferring female candidate Hillary Clinton, she backed out of active campaigning for the candidate after the uproar.

Interestingly, the always forthright (and more than equally maligned) Sarah Palin offered a classy valedictory today, lauding the efforts of Ferraro in breaking the political glass ceiling for both Clinton and Palin:

"She broke one huge barrier and then went on to break many more," Palin said in a statement. "The world will miss her. May she rest in peace and may her example of hard work and dedication to America continue to inspire all women."

Right answer. Let's end it there.

Revoke Media Matters' 501(c)(3)

Here's an interesting story today by Brandon Kiser at The Right Sphere via Ed Morrisey at Hot Air:

Media Matters really enjoys branding itself as an arbiter of truth designed to correct lies and misinformation from conservatives that they perceive is occurring in the US media.

Of course, we all know better than that. They’re no more than a Fox News bashing robot – and a bad one at that. Well, today Media Matters admitted to it’s real goal: waging “War on Fox” and the GOP. From Politico:

The liberal group Media Matters has quietly transformed itself in preparation for what its founder, David Brock, described in an interview as an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel.

States Brock:

“Criticizing Fox News has nothing to do with criticizing the press,” its memo says. “Fox News is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public.”

Two points, the second one first. Here we see one of the classic, Gramscian tactics the left has used for decades to transform their phony argumentation: the redefinition of terms. To even the relatively uninformed, Fox is indeed a news organization, like it or not. But in one fell swoop, without any supporting facts, Brock now declares that it is NOT a news organization, presumably because it generally (although not nearly always) supports the Republican argument.

Not only absurd on its face, Brock's organization itself, along with the rest of the discredited MSM, defeats his own argument since the MSM, lock, stock, and barrel, is in the tank for the Democrat-left at all times, and unapologetically so. If it's fair game to unilaterally redefine Fox news as the "de facto leader of the GOP," then it's also fair game to redefine the entirety of the MSM as the "de facto leader of the Democrat Party," and wage guerrilla war against them as well. Which, of course, is something Brock will never do, since Media Matters is, was, and always will be an organization by, for, and of the Democrat left.

Which brings us to our A-list argument, suggested here by Kiser but promoted by us for a long, long time:

The cutesy-sounding mission of Media Matters to “correct conservative misinformation” is no longer even remotely appropriate. No, MMFA is a political group with $10 million-plus in annual funding designed to wage war against Fox News, and in their eyes the GOP and conservatives as a whole.

Because of this, Media Matters should reconsider their 501(c)(3) status which is designated for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes. MMFA no longer meets any of these qualifiers (it’s arguable they never [sic] did) and under the banner of waging a war against Fox News and the GOP puts them in an entirely different zip code.

Yep. As the anti-Nixonians in the 1970s used to love to say, "Follow the money." The epic scandal over the last 50 or so years has been the long-march of the left through America's key institutions, another key element in the Gramscian strategy to take over the national narrative, or cultural hegemony, in order to divert it toward Gramsci's longed-for new world (Marxist) order. And one of the best ways of controlling the narrative is to make sure only one thread of it--the socialist thread--is heard while all other voices are shut down and shut out. (BTW, Brandon, surely your suggestion that Media Matters "reconsider" their tax status was meant ironically, right?)

In addition to their obvious control of the MSM, however, the left has taken over a key piece of funding machinery via intentionally subverting a key element in the U.S. Tax Code: the 501(c)(3) "charitable" organization. You name it. Organizations from AARP to the Sierra Club, from Greenpeace to the Ford Foundation, once perfectly respectable, tax-exempt organizations have been taken over, one by one. And now, along with the public-employee unions who are desperately trying to overturn the results of the 2010 elections, they're all united in using their tax-favored status to massively fund the final destruction of the USA and its basically two-party structure by eliminating the opposing view.

Such activities are clearly partisan and political and thus openly and notoriously violate the intent of the tax code re: 502(c)(3) organizations, all of which are specifically prohibited from undertaking political activities.

Life, of course, is rarely simple. Any number of 501(c)(3) organizations exploit loopholes in the law allowing them to own certain subsidiaries. And it's via these subsidiaries that the politicking is carried on in at least some of these organizations. All this is another story, probably a lot of other stories.

But the main point here is that Brock has exposed Media Matters for what it was always intended to be--a phony, astroturfing political organization dedicated to smearing and ultimately stamping out any political point of view that bothers Democrats, trade unions, trial lawyers, or the Soros-led (and funded) billionaire leftocracy.

It's time to employ a simple two-step program here: First, work as if your life depended on it to gain Republican (and hopefully Tea Party) control of the Senate and the White House in 2012 while retaining a commanding Republican lead in the House. And second: use that control to defund the left by enacting:

• Tort reform to throttle the costly predations of America's Trial Lawyers
• Union reform to bar public employee unions at the state and national level
• Revoking the 501(c)(3) status of all such organizations that are funding, either openly or covertly (via cleverly interlocking subsidiaries) political activities in violation of this statute. Such revocations would probably have to include some re-writing of the code to close the loopholes, but it needs to be done and done soon.

If we're to retain even a shred of the Founding Fathers' intentions for this great country, we are going to have to make a concerted effort to "follow the (leftists') money." By turning off, one by one, the illegal dollar spigots to these subversive bastards, we can start to bring the political argument back toward right of center where most Americans have always comfortably resided. But we'd better start soon.

A Tribute to Obamanation

We've been on travel up in Cleveland, and are now returning to blogging back in DC. And what to our wondering eyes just appeared in a recent, scurrilous email? A brand new tribute to President Obama:

Click (or double-click) to enlarge.

Hey, look, it's funny, right? A lot funnier than Bill Maher's by now virally-legendary, way-over-the-top smear of Sarah Palin. Rich lefties and faux-socialists like Maher love to redefine terms. This latest excursion by Maher into the left's spreading tar-pit of exceptionally vile anti-female-Republican misogyny definitively and graphically proves the utter bankruptcy of ideas, ideals, and moral standards on that side of the political aisle. Disgusting.

Obama's Keystone Cops

Re: Obama's amateurish bungling during the current Libyan affair, heres a wonderful observation today via Instapundit. Follow the link below for more:

Victor Davis Hanson weighs in. Under Bush, we were the world’s policeman. Under Obama, the world’s Keystone Kops.

Obama an expert in Trivial Pursuit?

Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you. Apropos of our observations in our previous entry, check out Keith Kossler's recent observations on the subject at White House Dossier:

The Middle East is afire with rebellion, Japan is imploding from an earthquake, and the battle of the budget is on in the United States, but none of this seems to be deterring President Obama from a heavy schedule of childish distractions.

The newly installed tandem of White House Chief of Staff William Daley and Senior Adviser David Plouffe were supposed to impart a new sense of discipline and purpose to the White House. Instead, they are permitting him to showcase himself as a poorly focused leader who has his priorities backward.

This morning, as Japan’s nuclear crisis enters a potentially catastrophic phase, we are told that Obama is videotaping his NCAA tournament picks and that we’ll be able to tune into ESPN Wednesday to find out who he likes.

Saturday, he made his 61st outing to the golf course as president, and got back to the White House with just enough time for a quick shower before heading out to party with Washington’s elite journalists at the annual Gridiron Dinner.

Apparently--and appallingly--there are no adults left in Washington, DC. Have things really gotten so bad in this country that we're going to have to adopt the Tunisian and Egyptian models if we're to achieve real "hope and change?"

As I move into the autumn of life, I am beginning at last to understand the motives and motivations of Shakespeare's bizarre Timon of Athens.

Ongoing fallout from a stupid presidency; or, Dave Fry for President

By now, nearly every sentient being in this country knows the world's a mess. Making matters worse, remember that the MSM persuaded us to put a literal moron in the White House in 2008: Barack Obama, our Community Organizer-in-Chief. We're paying an extraordinarily heavy, continuing price for that epic folly.

Making matters still worse, since the Republicans couldn't move the Senate to the right in 2010, the feckless Socialists Democrats are still running the show during Barack Obama's continuing virtual and actual absences from Washington, preferring, by their very inaction, to force the Fed to defensively print money while they continue to spend us into fiscal Armageddon. Why pay for bribes to your constituents when you can simply debase the currency to accomplish the same thing? I think I'm beginning to understand how patriotic Americans must have felt circa 1859-60 as the country slid rapidly into a special hell, courtesy of near-bovine President James Buchanan's stellar ineptitude coupled with an utterly deadlocked and dysfunctional Congress.

Dave Fry, who writes "Dave's Daily"--a technical charting column appearing almost every day on Jim Cramer's financial website, TheStreet--catches us up on the still-evolving nuclear disaster in Japan in his closing remarks, wrapping festivities with the following observations:

The United States has proven its diplomatic and strategic ineptitude along with other Western allies regarding all things MENA [Middle East and North Africa]. We have taken defeat from the jaws of victory and taken Gaddafi from just another tyrant back into an active terrorist.

The Saudis have invaded Bahrain infuriating the Iranians. We knew nothing of this until after the event so poor is our intelligence. All this is why we need a courageous leader to put forth a coherent and effective national energy policy. All we've done is block providers and created a worthless Department of Energy stuffed with bureaucrats and oozing patronage. It's a disgrace!

Game, set, and match. For once, I have absolutely nothing to add. This says it all. Maybe Dave should throw his hat in the ring in 2012.

Grammar and Spelling: The Sorry State of Online Journalism

Okay, I know, I know. Financial, fiscal, physical, and political disasters abound and I'll get to them. But in reading about them online (and for that matter, offline), I am continually appalled at the pathetic state of writing, editing, and grammatical usage that abounds on the net. Online content is a veritable disaster area of howlers.

Case in point: This afternoon headline on CNBC's "Fast Money" financial news site:

Pros: S&P Resilience Could Signal Rally in Tact

I'm cutting and pasting it here now in the actual hope that someone will catch this and fix it, so if you check the link and it's fixed, great.

But in point of fact, that's the way it is right now. From my standpoint as a working journalist, the only thing that's worse than a good in your article is a goof in the headline. Such an error simply howls IGNORANCE AND CARELESSNESS to an educated reader. But it's de rigeur these days. It's a dirty little fact that most journalists really can't write very well to begin with. In recent years, economy moves have eviscerated not only the editors who used to catch and fix this kind of stuff. But in many places, I'd wager there are no copy editors or fact checkers left in the newsroom at all.

The result: the kind of stupidity you see in the example above. Obviously, the moron who wrote the headline thinks that "tact" is a word that's modified by the preposition "in." If indeed he or she knows what a preposition is. Of course, it also goes without saying that the headline writer doesn't have a clue that there is, in the English language, an actual word, "intact," which in this context would mean "the rally is still in existence. It is no longer a former rally."

It is perhaps a small part of our ongoing tragedy that neither companies nor individuals take much pride in how their work comes across anymore, particularly in the writing professions where the bottom line in conjunction with a dysfunctional educational system have taken written communication to an all-time low these days. I have less of a beef with your average blogger who does the best he or she can without a back bench. But there's simply no excuse for an outfit like CNBC which, presumably, operates at the highest level of professionalism.

Yet such a headline as the one above proves that there's little if any QC involved in CNBC's online content. And if a headline (aka "hed" in news speak) is careless, can we have much confident in the quality or veracity of the content it introduces?

I'm done. For now.