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World war III? Another Mideast war? Obama's October surprise:

Posted by thekeenobserver on Tuesday, February 09, 2010 8:17:14 PM
 

April 25, 1980: President Jimmy Carter, in desperation, prematurely decides to pull off his "October Surprise:"

 

After 5 fruitless months - failing to secure the release of US hostages in Iran - Carter's poll numbers were crashing faster than the speed of light.

 

The Iranians had read the hapless Carter like the Koran:

 

After giving away the Panama Canal in summer of 1977, Carter then disbanded much of the CIA. Iran - now certain it could seize the US embassy without reprisal - took its 58 diplomats hostage on Nov. 4, 1979.

 

Knowing Carter was about as warlike as Mr. Rogers, the Muslim fundamentalists knew Carter would seek a diplomatic way out. But when a nation accedes to bullying, they get pushed around only more.

 

From day one of the crisis, Carter would embarrass the United States as no previous president before.

 

Carter -playing into the hands of Ayotollah Ruhulloh Khomeini - immediately decided the most feasible tactic was negotiation.

Iran blithely refused to negotiate.

Carter severed diplomatic relations; then imposed economic sanctions.

 

The Iranians only laughed, then countered by marching blindfolded hostages before TV cameras - mortifying America before the eyes of the world.

The mighty Carter appealed to the UN Security Council, and the International Court of Justice at The Hague .

Ayatollah Khomeini coldly responded: "the Iranian Parliament would decide the fate of the embassy hostages."

Throughout the following winter, extending into spring, Americans grew frustrated of the blundering Carter- realizing they'd elected an indecisive, spineless Commander in Chief: one who couldn't bear to risk bloodshed, lest it be on his conscience.

 

After six months of frustration over Iran's truculence, Carter finally resorts to military force: he orders "Operation Eagle Claw," which would humiliate America even worse.

 

The exercise - obviously conceived with scant knowlegde of special operations -could have been better planned by the Three Stooges:

 

POINT: the entire mission would take place at night; but no one, including the helicopter pilots and commandos, had been given any training whatsoever with night-vision goggles.

 

POINT: the eight chopper pilots were not advised about the likelihood of sandstorms, or the mechanical problems it would pose to their machines.

 

POINT: the entire mission would depend on the refueling of the helicopters by C-130's, which required precision timing (and precision flying) in total darkness, in unfamiliar territory  

 

On April 24, at 7:53 PM, eight helicopters took off from the carrier Nimitz in the Persian Gulf:

 

A swirling sandstorm (and subsequent mechanical problems) forces two helicopters to drop out. Gathering just north of Tehran, a third helicopter developes a hydraulic leak. Down to just five helicopters, mission commander, Army Colonel Charles Beckwith, aborts the entire operation.

 

Matters quickly turn disastrous when a helicopter collides with a C-130 - laden with fuel. In the resulting fireball, eight Americans die. 

 

The mission's failure spells doom for the hostages; their eventual release would occur only after 444 days of wrenching emotional distress for the nation - America's worst embarrassment of the entire 20th century.

 

Operation Eagle Claw would prove to be emblematic of Carter's 4-year administration: The former peanut farmer's days in the Whitehouse were numbered. The US military would totally revamp how it conducted special forces operations.

 

But now, given Barack Obama's disastrous rookie year, is history about to repeat?

 

Just as 9/11 allowed voters to forget George W. Bush’s meandering early months, a strike at Iran's nuclear facilities could render Obama’s early blunders irrelevant- preventing a possible democratic catastrophe come November.

 

Obama's phony posturing - that he doesn't mind being a "one term" president- rings hollow. Once a vain individual garners power, they cede it reluctantly, if at all.

 

Thus, could Hillary Clinton's attempt to gather allies - to foist sanctions on the Iranians - be setting the stage for an October surprise?

 

And given that, could Obama's naivity blunder America into a dangerous and unnecessary Mideast war? - one that could quickly spread to other continents?

 

ITEM-  Obama's disdain for spying: is he aware that BOTH the Russians AND Chinese are closet allies, and could lend support in a war?

 
ITEM- much like Carter, Obama has marginalized the CIA, and has all but destroyed their effectiveness. Is the Obama administration even aware that Iran is bristling with antiaircraft defenses, rivaling even those of the US and Israel?
 
ITEM- will Obama fail to consider the effect on the world price of oil, should he attempt - for political purposes -to recklessly order an air strike? With the price of oil rocketing northward, this would only play into Iranian hands.
 
ITEM- does the Obama administration realize that ALL of Iran's strategic nuclear facilities lie buried 800 feet below a mountain near the city of Qom - totally immune to our biggest bunker-buster bombs? Only tactical nuclear weapons could penetrate such impregnable surroundings.
 
ITEM:  Iran occupies a strategic location on the north side of the Persian Gulf - in a position to threaten oil fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates - altogether representing more than half of the world's oil reserves.
 
Yet the political pressure to do something SOON is ever-mounting: everything points to an October surprise - salvaging the democrats from impending disasaster, as Obama's approval slips below 40.

 

One can all but hear Rahm Emanuel and Axelrod whispering: "As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, your window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is on YOUR watch Mr. President, or the world will soon become a much more dangerous place."

TRANSLATION: If you want to save your presidency, you must attack the Iranains before November! Everyone thinks you're a lily!

 

Indeed; striking Iran would be just the dramatic gesture to change Obama's public perception as being Carter-esque - a way to spike his numbers back to "acceptable levels."

 
But unlike Carter's vain attempt in 1980, this time the stakes are much higher - the Iranians could strike back with a ferocity that would shock the world - spiking the price for crude oil, possibly igniting a much wider war:


On Abu Musa, Qeshm and on Sirri - three large islands near the strait of Homuz - the Iranians have installed advanced, Russian-supplied S-300 air defense systems - capable of shooting down modern American (or Israeli) fighter jets.

 
With its advanced radar, the formidable S-300 is far superior to Iran's previous Chinese-installed silkworm rockets; and can shoot down cruise and ballistic missiles.
 
The Russians virulently oppose any US hardline stance on Iran, which explains their insistence upon Iran's right to pursue "a peaceful" nuclear program. The Iranians provide Putin with a lucrative export maket for centrifuges, reactors and enriched uranium - everything necessary for Iran to achieve major nuclear status.  
 
Also, the Beijing-Tehran Axis has been nurtured by Chinese investments in Iran's largest oil fields. The South Azadegan field, along the Iraqi border, holds reserves estimated at approximately 42 billion barrels of oil, one of the world's largest finds in the last 30 years.

Another consideration: were a US strike limited to taking out only Iran’s nuclear facilities, and not aspiring for regime change, it would greatly risk possible uprisings against U.S. entities around the globe.

 

Given the propensity for an Obama October surprise, it could unfold catastrophically in unseen ways  - making Carter's previous foray into Iran resemble child's play.

 

The likely October scenario could play out as follows:

 

-- at dawn, a joint US- Israeli air-strike is launched from American carriers in the Arabian Sea 

 

--heavy US bombers, based in Diego Garcia, follow minutes later. Bunker-busters and mini-nukes fall on dozens of targets, while Iranian anti-aircraft missiles speed skyward.

 

By mid-morning, the second and third wave of US/Israeli air-raiders scream over their secondary targets. But one unanticipated problem - the effectiveness of the Iranian missile defenses.
 
The element of surprise now lost, US and Israeli warplanes began to fall from the skies in considerable numbers, downed by anti-aircraft fire.
 
At noon, Tehran time, the first Iranian anti-ship missile destroys a Panamanian tanker, departing from Kuwait - bound for Houston. Launched from an Iranian fighter plane, the Exocet splits the ship in half - blocking much of the entrance at the Strait of Hormuz.
 
A second and third tanker sinking follows. By 5 PM, all ship traffic on the Persian Gulf has ceased


Overnight, gas stations across the US raise prices:
 
Slowly at first, and then in all-out panic, prices rise to $4, then $5, and then $6 - even higher. Worried motorists form lines at the nearest gas stations - radios blaring the latest reports of the pre-emptive attack on Iran.
 
A third Middle Eastern war has begun.
 
In Washington DC, the spin commences:.
 
"By ridding Iran of weapons of mass destruction," secretary of Defense Gates declares confidently on CNN, "Iran might follow in the footsteps of Iraq, and enjoy the hard won fruits of freedom."
 
Obama goes on national televison. Gas prices rise again after his hastily-contrived, babbling speech. China and Japan threaten to dump US dollars. Gold rises another $200 an ounce. The dollar plummets against the Euro.
 
CNN reports violent, anti-American protests in Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and Dublin. Fast food franchises throughout Europe are attacked. Any enterprise, carrying an American corporate logo, is firebombed.
 
On the New York Stock Exchange, prices fall in frenzied trading--except for Exxon and other major petroleum producers.
 
Obama has miscalculated: with no real understanding of Iranian or Islamic culture, he is bufuddled: The Iranians welcome the surprise attack, for it gives them abundant chances for martyrdom - achieving that great, 72-virgin, giant orgy in the sky.
 
Obama's October Surprise has escalated out of control- it will trigger dire consequences for everyone: the world stands on the brink of an ever-widening war.
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Barack's judicial revenge

Posted by thekeenobserver on Monday, February 08, 2010 7:14:36 PM
 

"Joy-y-y to the World!"

 

Remember this “moldie-oldie” favorite?

 

The bizarre, daffy hit by "Three Dog Night" talked of Jeremiah, the inebriated bullfrog, who ingested some mighty fine wine, and got happy indeed.

 

Can there be a more incredibly stupid premise for a pop song?

 

In fact, “Three Dog Night” was reluctant to even record the old Hoyt Axton country tune, having done so only because their record producer informed them they were three and half minutes short on the flip side of their second album, "Naturally," released in early 1971.

 

But nonetheless, it was a smash hit - spending six weeks at number one - because it evoked a celebratory, positive mood on anyone who could stand listening to the juvenile, nonsensical verses.

 

And remarkably, for the last month, "Joy to the World" has been emblematic of conservative Americans - given the incredible turn of the tide - as if God Himself had intervened, and stopped Obamacare in the eleventh hour.

 

No longer threatened by the horrors of socialized medicine, one can sense a gigantic, discernable  mood-swing, particularly from the right - as if a great weight had been lifted from the national conscience.

 

ITEM- no longer do people call talk shows, urging revolution; that it's "time to lock 'n load."

 

ITEM- the rancorous townhall meetings are no longer, with signs that threaten: "You’ll have to kill me to make me buy health care."

 

ITEM- no longer is the internet buzzing with vitriolic oaths, to foment a "second revolution" against the radicals in congress, who flaunt their power over the will of the people. 

 

Even Sarah Palin is back to her legendary taunting: "How that hope 'n change thing working out for ya?"

 

But before saying adieu to radical left, and reading its obituary, we're forgetting one little minute detail: Barack Obama is still "da president."

 

Sure, with # 41 Scotty Brown now sworn in, we can all relax, kick back - and like our ol' drinking buddy Jeremiah - maybe even tip a glass of mighty fine wine.

 

Indeed! What's to worry? Cap 'n Trade? Not a chance of even coming up for a Senate vote!

 

Immigration reform? Card check? Universal Voter registration? How about climate change - and the ever popular EPA? 

 

The democrats are back-tracking faster than a mailman confronted by a pit bull.

 

But one thing looming large on the political horizon: before 2012 there will be possibly three vacancies filled on the U.S. Supreme Court; an opportinuty for el-Bama to land a huge blow for the radical left for a generation to come - perhaps longer.

 

In February 1980, presidential aspirant Ronald Reagan declared, “the Supreme Court needed fresh faces... new jurists who respect and reflect the values and morals of the American majority."

 

During his two terms, Reagan would appoint three new justices: Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy -- and elevated Bill Rehnquist to chief justice.

 

Reagan's picks were mysterious - often straying from Republican orthodoxy; but tipped the court “Right” for a generation.

 

But what about el-Bama?

 

Given the fact that the radical Sotomayor replaced Souter, with two more picks looming, what's to keep our dear anti-president from shaping a new, radical Leftist court, much as did Reagan for the Right?

 

Before inauguration day 2013, the Court could resemble the days of Earl Warren, when the liberals took the Constitution hostage, and inaugurated the dawn of judicial activism.

 

The nation faces that same grave threat now: John P Stevens is pushing 90; and the lovely 77 year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg has survived pancreatic cancer, and could be history any day.

 

What happens when Stevens finally hangs up the ol' black robe? Who would Obama pick next?

 

Diane Wood? Jennifer Granholm?  Janet Napolitano? Harold Koh? Cass Sunstein? Another Sotomayor? Is there any end to this radical parade of socialist-marxists? - each one with extremist views, that few Americans hold.

 

Unbelievably, one of Obama's favorites - former Yale Law School dean Harold Hongju Koh - could sit on the court next. Why? Because Koh would be wildly dangerous to conservative American interests.

Last June, Koh was confirmed by the Senate to be the State Department’s top legal advisor.

The ultimate judicial activist, Koh believes in imputing foreign law precedents into the Constitution.

Koh was once quoted in a Yale newspaper, saying  that ‘gay rights are especially important.' Koh also served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun - one of the Court’s alltime activists.

 

Just recall candidate Obama's ominous words in 2008, concerning his criteria for court nominees:

 

(QUOTE)..."We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom," said Obama. "The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criterion by which I'm going to be selecting my judges.”

 

Koh – who despises conservatives, and the US Constitution - would be a virtual “shoo in.”

 

And so would Obama’s good buddy, Governor Deval Patrick, who’s about as popular in Massachusetts as bubonic plague.

 

Although Patrick has never served in the judiciary, before he was elected Massachusetts governor, (thanks to David Axelrod, his campaign chairman) Bill Clinton appointed him US assistant attorney general for civil rights in 1994.

 

Patrick disastrously laid open all future US elections to corruption, after his ruling (in1996) against all challenges to Motor Voter – saying that…“requiring voter ID’s at the polls is discriminatory to minorities.”

 

It was Deval Patrick’s fateful decision that opened the doors for ACORN, and how Congress eventually would become so radically shifted to the left.

 

Hence, Mr Obama owes his leftist buddy a huge debt of gratitude.

 

Then there’s Cass Sunstein, 54 – former advisor to Obama's presidential campaign.

 

Sunstein - a colleague of Obama's at the University of Chicago - once taught at Harvard Law School, and now serves as Obama’s “do anything” czar – the ombudsman for the administration.

 

Sunstein has shown rampant antipathy for Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - terming them "judicial fundamentalists" - accusing them of advocating "earthquake-like" changes in the law.

 

Sunstein – a minimalist - believes justices' decisions should be narrowly tailored to the case at hand, and must lean heavily on precedent – NOT the words of the Constitution.

 

Sunstein once said: "the Supreme Court is not our national policy maker."

 

Finally, there is 52-year old judge Leah Ward Sears to consider - Mr. Obama's most likely pick.

 

The first woman to serve as chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, Ms. Ward is also the first African-American to serve on ANY Georgia superior court. Sears, like Sotomayor, is the obvious choice for Obama, as he seeks to achieve “diversity.”

 

Ironically, Sears poses the most strident danger to a conservative Court. Why? Unlike the others, she could easily gain confirmation: the republicans could find themselves backing down from the obligatory charges of racism – exactly why Obama would present her as a likely nominee!

 

Our Founders did the Constitution no favor when they provided life terms for Supreme court jurists, reasoning that - not being subject to re-election – they would not slant decisions based on parties, or for that matter, politics - desiring to see America governed by Rule of Law.

 

But could the Founders  have ever imagined a day when liberals would - during the New Deal era -  attempt to install full socialism upon America?

 

And did the Founders ever imagine when Ivy league liberals would oneday seize control over all legal thought - turning out an unceasing crop of lawyer-judges - believing that government is not constrained either by law nor Constitution?

 

In 1987, Ronald Reagan – to replace Justice Louis Powell – appointed arch-conservative Bobert Bork.

 

The democrats, led by Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy -on the Senate judiciary committee - vowed to  defeat Bork’s nomination by “any means necessary; which would include some of the most blatant lies ever spoken publicly about a worthy nominee:

 

(QUOTE)…"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution."

 

Indeed, Kennedy’s anti-Bork diatribe was an altogether startling statement. Shamelessly twisting Bork’s world view, Kennedy had painted him as a throwback to the Ku Klux Klan era– conjuring Scopes-Monkey images from the Old South

 

Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan’s response was noteworthy: (quote)…”the tirade was grotesquely unfair but  it “worked.” And, she continued, “The next time, the Right should answer in kind, matching tone for tone and blow for blow.”

 

But for over twenty years there has been no next time.

 

The democrats - emboldened by Kennedy - have fought demonically, and suceeded in keeping eminently qualified conservatives from taking their rightful place on the bench, while the republicans continually sat back and withered under charges of racism - fearing if they stuck to their guns, they could never again garner the minority vote.

 

But now, there can be no back-tracking to the 1980’s.

 

If Scott Brown’s election stands for anything, it means that Senate republicans must NOT permit any more radical leftists be confirmed on the Supreme Court.

 

The Republicans cannot succumb to Barack Obama’s inevitable attempt to “get even” for the loss of his radical agenda, and should take Noonan’s sage-worthy advice – matching tone for tone, and blow for blow.

 

For an entire generation, the very nature of the Court will be determined in the next 24-36 months.  

 

Obama may be gone in 2013, but he'll no doubt attempt to hang his activist albatross around the necks of future generations, as his ultimate revenge. 
 
 
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"three more years"

Posted by thekeenobserver on Friday, February 05, 2010 5:13:32 PM
 
Finally - the day of reckoning: you can't take it any more. Enough is enough.
 
It hasn't been an easy decision. You've agonized over it for several months; but held back your impulse to act - thinking the situation would improve.
 
But it hasn't!
 
In fact, things have only gotten worse. So now, there's no turning back. The anger within you has risen to a crescendo:
 
Now, after one last eye-rolling glance, you decide to take action: 
 
You kneel down, behind your car, take off your winter gloves, and proceed to peel off that God-awful, Obama-Biden BUMPER STICKER!
 
But after breaking a fingernail, you realize,,,"Uh-oh, this stupid *!*+*&^%#** thing won't come off!"
 
NOW What? 
 
Yecch... you say to yourself in utter disgust...WHAT WAS I THINKING?
 
Voting for Obama! How could I have been so gullible?
 
Yep; every time you walk out to your car now, you see the hackneyed remnants of that bumper-sticker. And the memories come rushing back:
 
You remember how pumped you were when you heard candidate Obama proclaim..."We're going to create 5 miilion NEW green-energy jobs in America! Jobs that CAN"T be outsourced!" 
 
"Yes!" you thought to yourself..." Just what the country needs"..."a president with a different plan to goose the economy, not just tax cuts like that stupid Bush..."
 
You recall your unbridled enthusiasm - talking up Barack Obama wherever you went:
 - at work 
- Starbucks
- Jiffy Lube
- The YMCA locker room
- outside church in the parking lot
- on the golf course with your Sunday afternoon foursome
 
And that "stupid jerk" neighbor of yours, across the street - the guy who said Obama "was too good to be true" - seems pretty wise now.
 
Then there was that fateful day, when you discovered someone had stolen the Obama sign from your front yard, and replaced it with a "McCain for President" travesty.
 
God *+!*&%!**! You recall how furious you were about that!
 
But now,  you recall the signals: things that gave you pause - like when Obama said:
 
...."We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set...We've got to have a civilian national security force, that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded!"
 
"Hmmm", you thought to yourself..."He sounded a bit reminiscent of Hitler; I wonder what he meant by that?"
 
However, after watching the evening news that night, you rested assured. You decided that indeed, Obama's the man - he's so articulate. Not like that stupid Bush!
 
Then you recall, just days before the election, when Obama wildly pumped his fist in the air, proclaiming..."We are just five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America."
 
"Hmmm," again your thoughts turned cautious..."FUNDAMENTALLY transforming America?"
 
But the next day, your enthusiasm glows anew for Obama: you see a picture on the front page of the newspaper, showing Obama hugging a young white woman at a rally, and your thoughts turn to..."racial harmony at last"...and..."it's about time we elected a black for president."
 
But "it's about time" has now turned into..."AAARRGH! Three more years before Obama's gone! What do I do until then?"
 
Indeed, Barack Obama has fundamentally transformed YOUR life; in ways you never imagined:
 
You have swictched from Starbux to Duncan Donuts.
 
You're gaining girth; its been weeks since you've been seen at the "Y"
 
You no longer attend early Sunday Mass; in fact you're thinking about switching to a different parish; or going to church on Saturdays.
 
For you, noontime at work is now "hide and seek." You view the employee lunchroom with abject horror, knowing the minute you walk in, you'll hear the inevitable..."How's your boy Obama doin? Hardy Har!"
 
Instead of Jiffy Lube, where you've known the manager for years, you suddenly decide to "save money on oil changes," and do it yourself.
 
"Thank God", you think. It'll be at least two, maybe three more months before golf season.
 
But the fact remains: everytime you walk toward your car - despite all your efforts - the words "Obama-Biden" are plainly evident beneath the white, peeled-off remnants of that darn bumper sticker from HELL.
 
The curse will not lift easily! Everyone still knows: YOU were one of THOSE - one of those gullible fools who voted for Obama!
 
Yes. You're trapped. There's no easy way of getting it off without damaging the car!
 
But later, while stopped at a red light, your attention turns to a shiny, silver Lexus, with dealer add-on deluxe wheels, and tires that must have cost in the hundreds. The tinted windows conceal the driver.
 
But as the unseen driver pulls away, you notice something familar: you sense redemption! On the back bumper of the shiny silver Lexus, are the telltale white, peeled-off remnants of a bumper sticker; and plainly visble beneath, are the words, "Obama-Biden."
 
Suddenly everything changes. You no longer feel so "all alone." A wry smile now creases your face as you drive off, thinking..."misery loves company."
 
"What the heck," you think to yourself. "I haven't worked out in a while. I think I'll go to the YMCA."
 
Then you think..."yeah three more years. Obama's got three more years to turn it around."
 
"Maybe the bumper sticker will have worn-off by then..."
 
 
 
 
 
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drill or die!

Posted by thekeenobserver on Thursday, February 04, 2010 7:18:47 PM
 
Okay all you crackerjack historians: pay attention.

Why was the Second World War fought? What was the actual reason for this apocalyptic, 6-year conflict?
 
In a word - OIL.
 
In his 1923 book "Mein Kampf, an embittered Adolf Hitler revealed his pathologic hatred for people of Slavic origin: his plan to use the Russians as slaves; and capture their huge, mineral- rich territory - thereby allowing the Arayan super-race to dominate the world.
 
Later, by 1937, an oil-dry expansionist Japan had come to realize their own need for a supply of petroleum within their own hemisphere:
 
Three years later, the Japanese would occupy French Indochina (Vietnam) - giving them access to the oil-rich Indonesian islands. This greatly imperiled US vital interests in the Far East, causing President Roosevelt to react with a devastating oil embargo.
 
But did Roosevelt overreact? In essence, it was his glaring (or deliberate) lack of foresight that all but forced Japan's hand to invade the oil-rich Dutch East Indies.
 
Hence, the Japanese began planning their pre-emptive strike at Pearl Harbor.
 
On July 26, 1941, The U.S. abrubtly cut off its oil exports to the Japanese - portending their inevitable economic collapse, possibly within months: "There was only enough oil," Admiral Osami Nagano told the Japanese Emperor, "to maintain the Imperial fleet under war conditions for one and a half years."
 
Calling an emergency meeting, Japan's fanatical war lords sought to win a quick, "sweeping victory." By Sept. 1941, Tojo and his insiders made plans for seizing bases in the western Pacific; then obtained from Admiral Yamamoto a separate blueprint for a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
 
But Japan's Pearl Harbor attack would prove to be one of the most colossal blunders in history:
 
Three and half years later, Japan would lie in ruins, devastated by the unbelievable build-up in military might by the United States, culminating in two atomic bombings, and the unconditional surrender that followed on Sept 2,1945 on the battleship "Missouri.".
 
Undoubtedly, Adolf Hitler's colossal blunder was NOT his decision to attack Russia on June 22, 1941. It was WHERE he directed his army.

If Hitler had immediately pushed his massive Wermacht divisions SOUTH, toward the oil-rich Caucasus region - rather than EAST toward Moscow and Leningrad - by late 1941, Germany could have taken posession of some of the most fertile petroleum fields in the world.
 
Since Russia's eastern Siberia fields had yet to be developed, Stalin would have been helpless; and an oil-starved Russian Army may have been forced to either surrender to the Nazis, or prepare for the inevitable sieges to come - lacking gasoline to fuel any offensives.
 
By early 1942, Hitler then could have massively reinforced Rommel's Afrika Corps - heading west toward the Suez: having seized the canal, the Desert Fox could have marched straight northeast, capturing Iran - then linked up with Germany's eastern divisions in the Caucasus region.
 
Viola! By late summer of '42, the Germans would have won the war.
 
With much of the world's oil supply at his disposal, Hitler's thousand year Reich just might've become reality.
 
Ironically, it would be lack of gasoline that ultimately stopped the Nazi war machine - causing their unconditional surrender to the Allies on VE day. May 7, 1945.
 
Then, a generation later, a surprise Mideast conflict would greatly imperil US national security:
 
In October, 1973, the "Yom Kipper" Arab-Israeli war would shock the American economy into deep recession. The OPEC nations -- retaliating against U.S. support of Israel-- quadrupled world oil prices to 12 dollars/ barrel, declaring an all-out embargo upon all overseas deliveries to American ports.
 
The US-- caught flatfooted-- had become vulnerable to imported oil for the FIRST time: a national security lesson that America has yet to learn.
 
By 1973, the US was already importing 1/3rd of its total petroleum energy; a harbinger of things to come.
 
It was only because of the opening of the Alaska pipeline in 1977, that enabled oil prices to return to economically sustainable levels; and kept OPEC imports level for the next decade.
 
Although construction was to begin in late 1969, environmentalists still had the pipeline tied up in court by late 1973, when the Arab states declared their embargo.
 
Alaskan oil -- which some estimated could cut imports by one-third -- had become a hotly-discussed national security issue. In November 1973, Nixon signed the "Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act," which prohibited any further environmental challenges, and the pipeline forged ahead.
 
During the 1980's, domestic US oil-drilling expanded right along with the Reagan economic boom; there were few restrictions or legal challenges. And with the "collapse" in world oil prices, not only did the US economy undergo its most rapid expansion since the early 60's, the military expanded to a 600-ship Navy, and the Army and Air Force entered the era of high-tech, "smart" weaponry.
 
A booming economy is based on low energy prices. And defense spending, which begets national security, is contingent on a healthy economy; but good luck explaining this to a democratic president.
 
In 1995, the Clinton administration would make one of the most costly, damaging blunders in U.S. economic history:
 
For political reasons, a "wily" Bill Clinton vetoed the congressional bill to initiate drilling in ANWAR - having 'succumbed' to the radical, Al Gore environmental lobby, and willingly danced on the puppet strings of the Sierra Club.
 
Currently, foreign oil supplies 70% of our needs. U.S. domestic production of crude is declining at a 2% annual rate.
 
Now do the math. 10 years times 2%, equals 20%. Add this to the 70% level of current oil imports, and by 2020, we arrive at a perilous 90% of our oil coming from foreign sources.
 
If we continue these suicidal restrictions against new domestic drilling, what then? Again we set up ourselves for a repeat of 1973!
 
But this time the stakes are higher! What about "our friends"...the Chinese?
 
Why is the Obama-compliant media not warning about the perilous threat we face from them? Could the Chinese one day be preparing for another global war? 
 
Why else do they proceed at breakneck speed, buying up resources around the world- spending US paper dollars as fast as they come in? Does China one day forsee an inevitable US (fiat) reserve currencies' crash, along with the global economy?
 
Right now, China is stocking up on strategic minerals. They travel worldwide, negotiating deals in Africa, Iraq, Iran, and recently Brazil - buying up huge areas of newly-discovered oil tracts; and commence drilling immediately after signing the contracts for development.
 
And along with their economic ride to (one day) being the world's biggest economy, the Chinese are concomitantly building up their military as never before - not unlike 1930's Germany and Japan.
 
Meanwhile Ken Salazar, secretary of the Interior, has recklessly vowed to tie up all US energy companies with legal challenges - seeking to block offshore drilling - to save the environment, and of course, protect all the nice whales.
 
US House Rep. Edward Markey (D- MA), the maniacal chairman of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee  has repeatedly blocked all exploration in the oil-rich Chuckchi Sea off Alaska, vowing not to disturb the pristine environment of the polar bears.
 
But what if Iran eventually attacks Israel, and Mideast oil exports to the U.S. are cut off again? How do we supply our military after our strategic petroleum reserve goes dry? What would our planes, ships, and tanks run on? Solar panels? Biodiesel?
 
What then?

 

Why does the $700 billion we pay to OPEC continue to be our chief annual export? Why can't we drill offshore in Alaska? Why not just set aside a protected reserve for the stupid polar bears, and be done with it?


Observe how the Obama administration has cut not muscle, but BONE out of defense spending, and take outrage: why are putting down our guard, while foreign enemies plan our demise?
 

What America stubbornly refuses to learn is that OPEC - and high oil imports - have directly affected the quality of our lives; just as much as any of the presidents or foreign wars in the last 40 years.


Consider where America would be today if ANWAR had come online a decade ago, and the price of gas had stayed below a buck-fifty per gallon. Would we even be in a recession today?


Currently, the United States remains a capital-starved country - a debtor nation; and when it comes to our energy needs, we’ve been reduced to the status of a BEGGAR nation. 


On November 4, 1979, America woke up to the horror that our embassy in Iran had been attacked, and our diplomats taken hostage. One year before, the blatantly foolish Jimmie Carter had disbanded much of the CIA - destroying our ability to perceive what was transpiring on the ground in the Middle east


Little did we know it was the opening shot in the war on terror; which was to culminate years later with 9-11.


But what if we were to awaken a decade from now, and discover that a US Navy supercarrier - enroute in support of Taiwan - had been sunk in the South China Sea,  immolated by a "smart bomb" DF-21 missle that China is manufacturing in great numbers - the opening shot of World War III.


Barack Obama would be long gone: But like another Carter, his disastrous neglect of national security becomes apparent too late - AFTER the damage has been done. 


So wake up America. Time is NOT on our side.

 
Drill, baby, drill. Our survival depends on it.


www.keenobserver.blogtownhal.com 
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Ben and Chuckie's excellent adventure:

Posted by thekeenobserver on Wednesday, February 03, 2010 7:10:39 PM
 
(QUOTE)..."If we are going to stay a great power, I hope and pray we will need the truth. We need to know what is going right; and we need to know what is going wrong. There is no greater time than now"...Charles Schumer (D- NY): 2007, on the "surge" in Iraq.
 
Chuck Schumer? Campaigning for truth? And for keeping our country "a great power"? Doesn't this sound like Barack Obama - campaigning for transparency back in '08?
 
If one thinks Harry Reid is bad news, then prepare for political armageddon:slimeball Chuck "cockroach" Schumer will likely reign as the Senate's new majority leader, given Reid's tanking popularity in the polls. 
 
And given Schumer's diabolical contempt for conservatives, he portends unending trouble for America, unless checkmated in November 2010.
 
The problem is...HOW?
 
Schumer headed the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee for two election cycles, knocking off 14 sitting GOP incumbents, primarily because of his incredible ability to raise mountains of money for other democrats. 

His arrogant presence in the Senate is contagious: reinforcing the prevailing climate of leftist radicalism - that one's constituents simply do not matter.   

Schumer - the ultra socialist-  is directly responsible for the 60-vote Senate supermajority that rammed through healthcare on Christmas eve - sending 2/3rds of Americans up in arms, and frightening everyone else. He will go to ANY extreme to expand the federal government's power. 
 
And late last November, cockroach Schumer would go to the ultimate extreme; he invited Ben Nelson (D-Neb) to go pheasant hunting.
 
Apparently Schumer, the most two-faced, lying, virulent anti-2nd Amendment politician in America, is absolutely devoid of scruples (or standards).
 
Anyone who is so anti-gun would never go near a firearm - let alone hunting.
 
But if this is what it takes to persuade a "moderate" colleague to change his mind - and transform him into a radical - then morals be damned; and a-hunting they would go: a last-minute ploy by the Brooklyn cockroach to win over Nelson's health care vote.  
 
Afterwards - given their propensity to avoid the truth - both Nelson & Schumer denied any health care lobbying took place, describing the trip as..."just two guys having fun, going hunting, and watching a little football."
 
But even if it meant donning safety orange, Schumer would eventually get Harry Reid his 60th vote:
 
Wednesday afternoon, Dec 16, 2009 - Capitol Hill: Ben Nelson gives his list of "must-haves" to Schumer and Harry Reid.
 
Thursday, Dec.17- marathon pre-negotiations begin: Schumer calls Nelson every 15 minutes.” By nightfall, Reid asks the Nebraska traitor to join him in round-the-clock talks, beginning Friday morning.
 
9:30 AM Friday, Dec.18: in a secret suite of offices in the Capitol basement - shielded from inquisitive media - final negotiations commence.
 
Taking part are Reid, Schumer, Nelson, and pro-abortion queen Barbara Boxer. White House deputy chief-of-staff, Jim Messina, serves as stand-by-messenger.
 
Nelson and Boxer have set up camp in different offices. Schumer and Reid were in a third office.
 
All Friday morning, Schumer shuttled between the three offices. Talks were slowly going forward. By early Friday afternoon, Nelson’s "home-state concerns" had been addressed, and the focus turned solely to abortion.
 
Earlier, Democratic Senators had voted to reject Nelson’s attempt to incorporate Bart Stupak's anti-abortion House language in the Senate bill.
 
According to Messina, late Friday afternoon, he overheard an exasperated Schumer saying....“I don’t know how we’ll ever solve this."
 
Then Nelson and one of his senior aides offered to break the abortion deadlock with Boxer - segregating taxpayer funds away from federal money for abortions. Finally, at 9:30 PM, Nelson and Boxer signed off on the deal.
 
Nelson came into Reid’s office to say goodnight, and wound up hugging each other. Nelson hugged Schumer next, and departed.
 
Within minutes, Barack Obama, aboard Air Force One - on his way back from the climate summit in Copenhagen - called with congratulations. Reid put the President on speaker phone, so Boxer & Schumer could hear.
 
Schumer “was extremely important,” a triumphant Nelson would tell POLITICO the next day (Saturday morning), announcing the outcome. “He is very innovative - not ideological - he just gets to the bottom line"…"We may be an odd couple in a lot of respects, but we share some of the same qualities in trying to solve things.”

Only two years earlier, Schumer seemed all but marginalized by Hillary Clinton, New York's "other" senator.
 
Now he’s unrivaled as the most dangerous democrat in Washington; the Senate’s central political force and chief negotiator.  The man who came within a Massachusetts special election from completing the socialist dream of Barack Obama.
 
Even before the ink was dry on the Senate's 24-zillion page healthcare monstrosity, Schumer would crawl back into his sewer - only to emerge a week later with yet an even worse threat to the Republic - universal voter registration.
 
Schumer's crazed, Machiavellian idea is to automatically register anyone on ANY government list: welfare, unemployment insurance, driver’s license, the legal system, property owners. Basically everyone who has ever had dealings with any government office.
 
Unbelievably, Schumer's bill also gives universal suffrage to convicted felons.
 
But only a bonafide traitor to the United States - Chuck Schumer - would DELIBERATELY seek to undermine the Constitution, and threaten one's right to vote legitimately.
 
Or how bout the wonderful Mr. Schumer's idea for immigration reform? He claims, "it will give 12 million illegals a hard path to citizenship...it will enable them to emerge from the dark."
 
Is there any end to this odious man's compulsion to buy votes? Or to tell any lie to accomplish such? Ever since Bush Jr. and McCain began talking about "immigration reform" a decade ago, it's remained at that same "unthreatening" level of 12 million illegals.
 
This is yet another of Schumer's (and the democrats') unending lies: there are at least 25 to 30 MILLION illegal imigrants, who'd comprise an undefeatable PERMANENT voting bloc for the democrats, and forever change the character, the culture, and even the language of our nation - for ALL TIME.
 
Think about it: this unending effort to undermine America, coming from a rich lawyer from Harvard, who never held a real job in his life - an exact Ted Kennedy clone, lacking only the big hair.
 
Or consider the recent Supreme Court’s ruling- striking down limits on corporate and union spending in elections. Ironically, cockroach Chuck was quick to pronounce it...“un-American.”
 
And showing his true insect nature during the State of the Union, Chuck Schumer, sitting directly behind six Supreme Court jurists, leaned over behind Samuel Alito and clapped in his face, after Obama denounced the Court's ruling as..."opening the door to foreign special interests to control our elections.."
 
Schumer, the next day, weighed in on Obama's opposition:
 
“As chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, which is the committee with jurisdiction over these issues, I’m announcing that we will hold hearings on the impact of this decision within the next of couple of weeks."
 
Sorry CharIie: nowhere in the Constitution does it reveal anything about the Senate Rules Committee having the power to govern the Supreme Court.
 
Perhaps the Senate cockroach has an updated "living Constitution" that he's referring to? But why would Mr.Schumer - normally a good-natured chap - be so furious about the ruling?
 
Could it be because three (of the top five) highest spending corporations who lobby, give more money to Schumer than ANY other Senator? Now that corporations can spend money directly on ads, they won’t be spending so much taking Mr. Schumer to lunch.
 
Poor Chuckie: for once he didn't get his way.
 
GOP challengers now have a real chance against him in 2010, and his other deep-rooted democratic incumbents, and their big war chests.
 
For now, Schumer thinks he is safe. Nonetheless, a strong candidate with popular appeal (and grass-roots backing) could present a real problem for Chuckie.
 
Indeed: look no further than Brown in Massachusetts. as prime example of what CAN be done.
 
Looking at the record, Schumer has done nothing for New York as Senator - spending all his time cheer-leading for Obama's agenda (Schumer supported the “Stimulus”, likes Cap and Trade, trying terrorists in NY, etc).
 
Therefore...he lives in very UNPOPULAR, dangerous electoral territory. In fact, if Michael Steele had half a brain, he'd be searching for a viable challenger, now that Rudy Guliani has chickened out.
 
The one guy that springs to mind is NY governor candidate Rick Lazio - a longshot who could come from behind to beat Schumer, as Scott Brown did vs. Coakley.
 
Steele MUST talk Lazio away from going after Patterson. Polling suggests he would finish last in a four-way race for governor of New York.
 
It's not that the GOP doesn’t have a candidate to beat Schumer. It's that nobody is looking in his direction - awed by his big name. 

But why ignore the HUGE antipathy toward this slime-covered lout? - borne by virtually every conservative in America, who would gladly contribute to a Lazio run. Schumer is vulnerable; one of the most despised Senators ever.

Recall how Brown was victorious: he ran a NATIONAL campaign, supported by conservatives around the nation, sending in their 5 to 500 bucks to defeat Coakley, who would have voted democrat down the line.
 
So write Rick Lazio today: urge him to run in the race where the WHOLE nation - rather than a small constituency in New York- would be behind him: stomping out Chuck Schumer, the wily Senate cockroach.
 
This most dangerous of ALL democrats in Washington MUST be somehow defeated. Going from Reid to Schumer would be jumping from the frying pan into the fire
 
(QUOTE)...“A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to serve a free people.”  Declaration Of Independence - 1776.
 
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Driving democracy over the brink?

Posted by thekeenobserver on Tuesday, February 02, 2010 7:25:01 PM
 
IDEA: In the upcoming 2010 midterms, let's take a cue from the Iraqis: require the indelible, purple ink stain on one's index finger -providing evidence of everyone who's already voted in the election.
 
Of course, illegals would still be voting; but multiple votes from a single person? Not any more!

Is there a better way to thwart our good friends at ACORN? 
 
Despite bitter partisan divisions along Shia/Sunni religious lines, Iraq's elections are free of the Democrat party - falsely contending that voter ID's are "discriminatory."
 
In 1996, Deval Patrick, Clinton's Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, upheld Motor Voter's provision that picture ID"s weren't required to vote - ruling that minorities were less likely to have driver's licenses or other forms of legal identification.

To this day, Democrats have YET to make a convincing argument AGAINST mandatory voter identification. 
 
But Republicans have done virtually nothing over the last decade to argue against Motor Voter - enabling ACORN to corrupt our electoral process, with no discernable end in sight.
 
Not surprisingly, liberals abhor the very idea of voter ID's: knowing that voter fraud is the only way the Socialist Democrat Party can win - the same methodology whereby Communist governments run (and win) their elections.
 
EXAMPLE: The great state of Cal-Mexica (California), where 36 of its 52 Congressional districts have been captured by Democrats - many of them outright Marxists.
 
California's illegal immigrant invasion continues to grow: voter fraud is pervasive - far worse than officials will ever admit. A fake driver's license and/or social security card can be had on the street (in San Diego or LA) for less than one hundred dollars - ready in ONE hour.
 
Not wanting "returns," immigrant smugglers REQUIRE that their "customers" have the obligatory 100 bucks to "get legal," before crossing over the border.
 
On voting day - in the fields of California's Central Valley - migrant workers are all bussed to the polls - including those newly-arrived into the state. This has plagued California for over 14 years now.
 
How else could California have became such a solidly-Democrat-voting state?
 
In the 1980's, California twice voted overwhelmingly for Reagan. But since the late 1990's, with the passage of Motor Voter, every warm body that shows up at the polls can vote -no questions asked - as long as they vote Democrat.
 
And whenever a republican cries "foul", the political Left always replies: "There has been little actual evidence of voter fraud. There have been very few federal prosecutions or convictions; the Republicans are the party of "disenfranchisement" - trying to prevent minorities and the poor from voting...etc."
 
Since Motor Voter, democrats have election fraud down to a science. Many key positions at the polls are ACORN operatives. The secretaries of states, and directors of elections, never fail to have "D" after their names.
 
In January of 2007, the "Albuquerque Tribune" reported Daniel Ivey-Soto, the newly elected New Mexico elections director (former lawyer for the state Democratic Party), frankly admitted that voter fraud exists in his key swing state: (quote)...“I have been in conversations with people who have told me that, at various times, they’ve voted more than once on Election Day.…It happens.”
 
It happens? So where is the public outcry?
 
What kind of "democracy" is it anyway, where Americans - a nation roundly obsessed with being fair - puts so little emphasis on the security and integrity of its vote count?
 
After a Democratic Congress passed "Motor Voter" - the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, loopholes allowed the dead, and those that have moved away, to remain on voter rolls- some for a decade.
 
Since 1994, the "registering" of fake voters has swayed key elections at every level - from President, U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor - way down to the local elections.
 
In a 2004 case involving a Texas U.S. House seat, where Henry Cuellar won by 58 votes, the "San Antonio Express-News" reported ...“We may never know if illegal votes propelled Cuellar to victory in the 28th Congressional District Democratic primary..."
 
The paper found that primary voters in one Cuellar stronghold (Webb County) had already moved out of the district, while not changing their voter-registration addresses; yet 24 of them somehow had "voted" in the election.
 
In the 2004 Wisconsin presidential election- where Kerry finished 11,000 votes ahead of Bush - the "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel" reported clear evidence of fraud, including 200 felons who voted illegally; and another 1000-plus people who voted using either fake addresses or false names - or had voted twice.
 
In a 1996 case, California Republican Congressman Bob Dornan was narrowly defeated by Democrat Loretta Sanchez in a "huge upset," by a paltry 984 votes. An investigation by the House of Representatives found that 547 'non-citizens' had voted; but not enough to void the election.
 
But in one of the worst cases of voter fraud EVER witnessed in America, Woody Jenkins - a brilliant conservative orator - with 25 years in the Louisiana Legislature, was defeated by challenger Mary Landrieu for the US Senate seat vacated by democrat J. Bennet Johnson.
 
All day, on November 5, 1996, Mr. Jenkins led Landrieu in the exit polls - 51% to 49. But then, at 9:45 PM, a sudden "surge of votes" from New Orleans proper, saw Landrieu edge slightly ahead.
 
There were countless reports of "irregularities." Stories of voter fraud were rampant:
 
On election day, hundreds of vans and busses cruised New Orleans' public housing projects - soliciting persons to "make some money" by going to the polls, then voting multiple times. Democrats were paid anywhere from $10 up to $120, for their votes.
 
A 32-year-old mechanic testified he drove a van, "picking up people who proceeded to vote at least ten times, or even more." For his efforts, he received $700.
 
Outside the city, Jenkins had won the entire state by 95,000 votes. Within New Orleans proper, he was buried by a margin of 100,000. In certain city precincts, incorrectly-dated computer voting-machine tapes had Jenkins losing to Landrieu by a margin of NINE to one.
 
This had all been the work of LIFE, the "Louisiana Independent Federation of Electors" - New Orleans' mayor Mark Morial's personally chosen city workers, who were paid to "campaign" for democrats.

ACORN would later emulate LIFE in their modus operandi.
 
Within inner city precincts, phone banks would identify sympathetic voters. LIFE workers then would fan out, waving signs at intersections. "Runners" then periodically checked vote totals. Where turnout was low, phone banks would make directed calls into that particular precinct; then "blitz teams" are dispatched to bang on doors, and "get out the vote."
 
By early afternoon, exit polls showed Landrieu behind Woody Jenkins.
 
Landrieu then piled into the back of a red convertible with mayor Morial, with her motorcade close behind - making a final push through the New Orleans inner city.
 
The parade would briefly stop, workers in surrounding vehicles would jump out to pound on doors; then Landrieu supporters used vans to haul voters from one precinct poll to the next - voting multiple times.
 
The motorcade would then reassemble - moving on to the next neighborhood.
 
When it was all over, Mary Landrieu had narrowly won by 5448 votes, on the strength of a whopping 100,000 margin in New Orleans - the closest Senate race in the entire nation that year.
 
Afterwards, Woody Jenkins filed charges of voter fraud before the Senate Rules Committee.
 
In April 1997, the Committee agreed, by a nine-to-seven party-line vote, to broaden the investigation. However by June, committee Democrats were complaining that the inquiry had failed to produce hard evidence of ANY fraud, and withdrew from the probe.
 
After the Justice Department pulled its agents off the investigation, Morial’s political machine (and state Democrats) came forward with allegations: Jenkins’ investigators had engaged in "witness-tampering."
 
By October 1997, the Senate Rules Committee voted unanimously to end the inquiry -concluding that “isolated instances” of voter fraud did occur, but there was no proof of a “widespread effort" to illegally affect the election's outcome; or that Landrieu had any direct involvement in the violation of election laws.
 
Today, is it any wonder that in a "right center" nation, our Congress is held by a radical group of leftists, elected by virtue of a law where voters can vote instantly, vote often, and of course, vote Democrat.
 
Since 1996, Motor Voter has given us Mary Landrieu, a democratic supermajority in Congress, and has turned the once-great state of Calfornia into a radical bastion of liberals, who seek to undermine the very character of our nation itself.
 
Had it not been for Scott Brown, number "41" in the Senate, already the Congress would be gearing up to vote on immigration reform, and universal voter registration. By 2050, America would have been an unrecognizable nation from only a half century before.
 
Once Brown is seated, the very first order of republican business MUST be the repeal of the Motor voter law, before these desperado democrats drive our democracy over the brink.
 
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Our 44th president: a one-term wonder?

Posted by thekeenobserver on Monday, February 01, 2010 6:37:21 PM
 
April 11, 1861 : Confederate General P.T. Beauregard sends the Union occupants of Fort Sumter an ultimatum - either surrender peacefully...or face siege!
 
Previously, in December of 1860, South Carolina had been the first (of eleven) Southern states to leave the Union; and secession meant expropriation of US government property within its boundaries - clearly threatening civil war.

Days before, President Abraham Lincoln had issued firm instructions: Under no conditions was Major Robert Anderson, the Union commander, to surrender. Union reinforcements were to arrive within days.
 
Knowing Lincoln's intentions, Jefferson Davis - by seizing Fort Sumpter  - could force the northerners out the South; and secure the strategic port of Charleston for the Confederacy.  
 
While writing his inaugural address the month before, President Lincoln greatly feared losing the nation's Southern forts, and of the grave consequences if any more southern states were to declare secession.
 
As he took the podium, speaking to a hushed assemblage of Congress, Lincoln began:
 
"My fellow Americans, America is on the verge of fracture and dissolution. We are facing dissension of the highest order - a rebellion of the Southern states, seeking to destroy the whole of our sacred nation. A house divided against itself can only be destined to fall, to be dashed upon the rocks of history..."
 
"...Therefore, in order to preserve the sanctity of our union, I have ordered that the Department of the Interior make a feasibilty study; and to avert impending war, it's my goal that we construct a transcontinental railroad, that it may better serve to unite our nation, stronger than ever before!"
 
A piercing, simultaneous gasp now is heard from Congress; as if all the air had been taken from the room!
 
"Mr. Lincoln, sir, can you be serious?" asks the House Speaker..."at a time like this, you speak of railroads, rather than of armies and armaments. Please sir: explain what you mean"
 
"Yes Mr. Speaker; I AM serious," replies Lincoln.
 
"When I ran for president, I promised I would keep our union intact; and what better way to unite our divided country than a government-run transcontinental railroad!...It would bend the cost curve of traveling by covered wagon. And it would shrink our deficit by avoiding a costly war!"
 
But what if Lincoln had actually come to such an irrelevant conclusion? Rather than addressing the nation's peril of an impending civil war, what if Lincoln had persisted in urging the Congress to go off on some tangent?- building his pet project - completing a coast-to-coast rail line.
 
Lincoln would have been publicly ridiculed to no end. The people would have wondered if they had elected a president, or a mental patient.
 
But rather than irrelevancy, Abe Lincoln acted with courage - calling on the Northern states to place 75,000 militia at the service of the Federal government. A rush of enthusiastic men now came forward to fight for their country.
 
Simultaneously, four additional states then seceded the Union: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The American Civil War had officially begun.
 
Lincoln would go down (in history) as America's greatest, most revered president; and undoubtedly would have stayed in the Whitehouse for the rest of his life - the man who had saved America from destroying itself within.
 
Eighty years after Fort Sumter, the Japanese strike at the major naval base in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor would again alter the course of America's history:
 
On Dec 7, 1941, waves of Japanese carrier-based planes struck Pearl Harbor at 7:55 AM on a Sunday morning. All together, the Japanese sank 18 ships - 8 front-line battleships, three light cruisers, and three destroyers.
 
On the neighboring airfields, the Japanese destroyed 161 American planes, and seriously damaged 102. The Navy and Marine Corps suffered a total of 2,896 casualties.
 
The next day, December 8th 1941 --130 million angry Americans are gathered in front of their radios, anxiously awaiting President Franklin Roosevelt's reponse:
 
President Roosevelt, standing before Congress, issues his statement:
 
"Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan; but I believe that this was an isolated incident, and that we should not overreact..."
 
"In the meantime, I believe we can continue to deal with this protracted downturn in the economy, using the best way to get Americans back to work, and help the middle class - a well-run, national program, backed by the federal government - to get electicity to our nation's farms, and bring them into the 20th century..."
 
"It will create five-million, electric-energy based new jobs!"
 
"Thus, I've ordered the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps  to invest all the resources they've got at their disposal, because public support for rural electrification is higher than it has ever been before!"
 
"Americans - whether they live in our great cities, or on our nation's fertile farms - can no longer be expected to go without power, and keep our great nation's economy from recovering its righteous might, that we all may prosper!"
 
"May God bless America- and we'll see about Japan next year."
 
But what if Roosevelt really HAD spoken in such a shockingly absurd, irrelevant manner? How long would he have remained president? Would he have been confined to a mental ward - his reputation sullied forever?
 
Actually, when Franklin Roosevelt made his famous war address before Congress (after Pearl Harbor), he was indignant; furious; his voice quaking with emotion - he was being relevant.
 
Americans wanted revenge! And Mr. Roosevelt assured them victory would be theirs. Pearl Harbor would be a defining moment - unifying America as never before.
 
FDR - long considered the best President of the 20th century- was defined not so much for his accomplishments, but because he was always there to solve whatever problem was at hand.
 
Despite the fact that his New Deal policies actually proplonged the Great Depression, FDR always gave the IMPRESSION he was on everyone's side. Thus - beloved by the people - he would be re-elected for his second, third, and even an unprecedented 4th term.
 
There is an old axiom: (quote)..."Sanity is simply a matter of being relevant..."
 
Which leads us to Jimmie Carter, unabashedly accepted as America's worst president of the 20th century - perhaps ever. But it wasn't so much that he was a BAD president per se, or for that matter, stupid. It was the fact that everything Carter did was IRRELEVANT!
 
From day one in office, Carter seemed to be in a world all his own:
 
President Ford had left office with a clean slate. America was just coming out of a deep recession. On the foreign policy front, things were peaceful.
 
But mysteriously, acting on his liberal compulsion to be "fair," Carter INSISTED we return the Panama Canal to its "rightful" owner. Americans stood aghast, wondering why Carter would create a problem that did not exist.
 
Then, even more mysteriously, Carter suddenly disbanded much of the CIA.

In October ,1977, Carter instructed Director Stansfield Turner to fire 400 of the agency's best experts, that had long kept a watchful eye on the Soviets and the Middle East.
 
This would demoralize the ENTIRE worldwide U.S. intelligence community - making it virtually impossible to respond to the Iranian hostage crisis the following year, after the Shah was overthrown. Then, a year later, Leonid Breshnev ordered the Red army to invade Afghanistan.
 
Ironically, if the good-intentioned Carter had just sat in the Oval Office for 4 years, and played "fish" (cards) with daughter Amy - or went down to Plains (Georgia) to work on the old family peanut farm, there may have been NO hostage crisis; NO 1979 spike in oil prices; and NO stagflation- with double-digit unemployment, inflation, and interest rates.
 
Jimmie Carter, Mr. Irrelevant, - who could do no right - would serve one term.
 
Many presidents -reviled by history - were NOT re-elected because they were bad, but rather, because they had pursued an agenda of irrelevancy: they lacked either the courage, the intelligence, or the morality to effect the will of the people. They were "out of touch".
 
Americans don't make kings of their leaders, or bow down to their wishes. But they do expect their Presidents to be relevant, and act accordingly.
 
And now, not unlike Jimmie Carter, Barack Obama seems in a world all his own: yet another irrelevant president ignoring the problems of his time:

POINT: his stimulis bill was an anti-stimulant -doing nothing for unemployment. Out of $787 billion allocated, only $30 billion was for infrastructure - the rest going to sources that can be politely regarded as "political rewards."
 
POINT: his attempted prosecution of the Bush-era CIA interrogators. Was there any call (or need) for that?
 
POINT: his idea to try terrorists in civilian courts. Is there any precedent for that?
 
POINT: his crusade for government-run healthcare; and the public option. Who among mainstream America had been asking for that?
 
POINT: his bizarre attempt to define the war on terror as an "overseas contingency operation." But this has only turned out to be a bonanza for al-Qaida, as America is viewed by our enemies as weak, appeasing, and unwilling to punish severly those who attack us.
 
POINT: his insistence on annual deficits; as "far as the eye can see." Did Mr. Obama have a mandate for that?
 
Strangely, after one year of irrelevancy, Obama says..."I won't quit; I won't back down."

Not surprisingly, such uncertainty has froze businesses in their tracks- owners are afraid to rehire in droves. Unemployment now hovers close to 12%, with no end to the rise in sight.
 
Yet climate change legislation is still on the table - a sure-fire job-killer. 

Government-run healthcare still hangs ominously over ourheads, as does "immigration reform. 
 
Even more irrelevant, Obama's pledge to lift the military's ban on openly gay service members is yet another creation a problem where none had existed before .
 
After one year since taking the Oval Office, this profoundly begs the most obvious question: Mr. Obama...when in the world are you gonna do something WE want? Not just what you want!
 
ALL everyone wants is a JOB! - leave the rest ALONE!
 
And given three more years, Jimmie Carter may end up looking like George Washington - compared to the stark irrelevancy of Barack Obama.
 
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Loose cannons? - shooting down Palin in 2012?

Posted by thekeenobserver on Friday, January 29, 2010 10:09:17 PM

In October 1988, the "Willie Horton" ad blows the presidential race wide open.

In the months before, polls had Michael Dukakis, the Governor of Massachusttes, holding a consistent 9-12 point lead over George Bush senior. 

Lee Atwater, chairman of the RNC, had been advising Bush to go negative - cease with the touchy/feely stuff, and attack Dukakis unmercilessly.

Atwater then crafted the controversial Horton campaign spots, predicting...."by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name."

After stabbing a defenseless gas station attendant 19 times, Mr. Horton had been sentenced to life with no possibility of parole. But 11 years later, Governor Dukakis decided to be "rehabilitative" - granting the killer a weekend furlough; but Horton never returned until after yet another sadistic rampage.

Horton showed up in Oxen Hill, Maryland, broke into a house, and for seven hours, punched, pistol-whipped, and slashed the homeowner - cutting him 22 times across his midsection with a kitchen knife.
 
When the victim's’ fiancée showed up later that evening, Horton gagged her and savagely raped her twice. Horton then stole her car, and was later chased down by police and captured.

Atwater's commercial ended with a soundbite, revealing Dukakis saying candidly, "he heartily supported the weekend furlough program for convicted felons."

Ultimately, Mike Dukakis lost by a landslide. 

In the 1996 election - won going away by Bill Clinton - NBC's "Saturday Night Live" unrelentingly ridiculed Bob Dole, portraying him as an ancient, senile, bumbling dolt - unable to maintain his balance while onstage.

In 2004,  an unending series of Republican 527 ads "swift-boated" John Kerry to defeat vs. George Bush junior. 

In 2008, Barack Obama ran TV spots lampooning McCain's support for taxing employee health care plans. Mr. Obama has since back-tracked on his campaign pledge to NOT tax those very same benefits. 

Negative campaigns ads have become a virtual bulletproof way to gain an immediate, if not decisive advantage over one's opponent. 

The average voter could view 99 factual, positive ads; but standing out - just before marking their ballot -would be that ONE negative ad that they clearly recall. Exit poll surveys often reveal that undecided voters often made their decision after viewing a negative ad.

Humans are oblivious to the SUBCONSCIOUS mind: and it's the subconscious that registers FEAR higher over every other emotion - the reason why a negative strategy usually predominates over any other.

In 1964, the "Daisy" commercial still reigns the most famous negative political ad of all time- surpassing far beyond the democrats' wildest expectations:

It featured an innocent-looking, wide-eyed little girl in a field, counting each petal as she flicked them from a big daisy. Suddenly, a harsh voice-over interjects a reverse "military" countdown..."5...4...3...2...1..." followed by stark footage of an explosion, and a mushroom cloud rising ominously from an atomic bomb.

It was designed to impugn republican Barry Goldwater as a dangerous, unstable warmonger.

Americans - terrified over the possibility of Goldwater's proclivity to employ nuclear weapons in the Cold War - elected Lyndon Johnson in droves.

But what if negative campaign ads had been outlawed? - say in some controversial,  5-4 previous Supreme Court decision.

Barry Goldwater might have won the Whitehouse in 1964; there may have been no Vietnam; nor "Great Society" welfare programs, which have spawned a permanent minority underclass.

Or what if Chevy Chase (and Saturday Night Live) had not cast Gerald Ford as some lumbering, clumsy oaf - not to be taken seriously. There would have been no Jimmy Carter, America's worst modern President, who defeated Ford by the narrowest of margins.

And if television had come to the forefront by 1948, republican Thomas Dewey may have resoundingly defeated Harry Truman, given the fact Truman spoke in monotones, and would have looked "grandfatherly" next to the distinguished- looking Republican governor of New York.

Which leads us to an undeniable conclusion: it's NOT the best presidential candidate who wins - but the one who's MOST electable!

Television is the 80,000 lb gorilla that now decides presidential elections.

Picture gnarly John McCain in the three debates vs. the glib Obama: was McCain "electable"?

And how about Sarah Palin? - the conservative darling of the Tea party - is she electable?

Not surprisingly, a recent Newsmax -Zogby poll asked likely GOP voters: "If the Republican primary for president of the United States were held today...for whom would you vote?"

Sarah Palin won handily over Mitt Romney, who finished in second place.

Most notable was Scott Brown - the candidate from "central casting"- who finished down the list, below Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

This is clearly good news for Palin - but an impending DISASTER for America!

Sarah Palin - a disaster? - the woman who would be an energetic, conservative, decisive leader: one who would be strong on defense, support our military, open up the nation's coastlines for energy exploration; who would cut taxes, and prosecute the war on terror as no one before!

But again- is she ELECTABLE?

Despite her myriad, prodigious talents, and her magnetic charisma, she will be forever remembered for her flippant answers to Katy Couric; and for the way Tina Fey cast her on Saturday Night Live, looking out her front door, saying..."I can see Russia!"

Hardy har.

So don't do it republicans! Sarah is every conservative's favorite, but who else?

Pro-abortion single women? Minorities? The unions? Liberals? Government workers? The media?

How about the under-25 morons, who glean their politics from Comedy Central, and of course, Saturday Night Live. Could they ever be considered "pro-Palin?"

If Palin - although worthy - would manage to garner the GOP nomination for 2012, what then?

How about Playgirl poser Levi Johnson? How many millions of dollars would the former "to-be son-in-law" of Ms. Palin be paid to spill the beans?- appearing on every talk show, from Opra to Lettermen?

Johnson would be on every tabloid cover, with the caption...."Sarah Palin once told me I was her secret desire"...etc. Johnson would be the ultimate loose cannon, with his face popping up EVERYWHERE. The National Enquire would flourish as never before. 

Or how about the nice people at CNN and MSNBC? How soon before they began to cast Palin's nomination as "racial" - depicting her supporters as "largely white"..."almost no minorities in her crowds."

And soon to follow would be CBS, NBC, and ABC, perpetually raising doubts on the 6:30 PM news..."Sarah Palin; is she qualified to sit in the Oval Office, an inch away from the nuclear trigger?"...etc.

Even worse, picture Palin being "swiftboated" by a plethora of negative campaign ads, sponsored by every leftist organization, from Move-On.org to the National Foundation for Saving the Polar Bears.

Just last November, a Washington Post-ABC News poll reported that 52 percent of voters viewed Palin UNFAVORABLY, versus a 76% positive rating among Republicans  -precisely why it's unlikely she could win in 2012.

Sarah Palin is, in a word(s), divisive, polarizing...there's no in between: EXACTLY the type of candidate most susceptible to negative campaign ads, where the undecideds (at the last minute) would vote Obama!

This is not to say she could never get elected president, but why not put her non-pareil political talents where she belongs? - in the US Senate; or replace the controversial Michael Steele with Sarah Palin- the defacto conscience of the nation.

These are two positions where she would truly shine! Then, perhaps by 2020, Palin would have the 'seasoning' - AND the following - to be the first woman in the Whitehouse.

Barack Obama's second term would be a calamity for America. And nominating an unelectable Republican candidate - like Dole in '96 - would make it a harsh reality.
 
Jesus once said: "Many are called...but few are chosen."
 
So PLEASE Republicans; for God's sake, do not choose Sarah for the top spot in 2012 - you'd be placing a huge bullseye on her back. 

Imagine the "Saturday Night Live" skit-writers - it'd be sheer Nirvana! It would set off the leftist media into a feeding frenzy.

Palin is far too valuable to the GOP to be political cannon fodder. So why give the Left another chance to shoot her down?
 
Nominate Scott Brown and be done with it.

www.keenobserver.blogtownhall.com

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Obamacare! To be...or not to be?

Posted by thekeenobserver on Thursday, January 28, 2010 6:55:58 PM
 
SETTING: The 2010 Super Bowl

SITUATION: The Colts are behind by four, with 1 minute to play, on the Saints 8-yard line.

Manning calls an audible. He throws a quick slant pass to his tight end, who catches it in stride! But a jarring hit knocks the ball loose, into the hands of a New Orleans linebacker. Now he's running up the sideline!

Chased by an angry Colt team, they tackle him at midfield. There are 30 seconds left in the game.

So what now? If you were the Indianapolis coach, what do you do? Tell your team its over? - or try to inspire them with a last ditch pep talk? But would they even listen?

What then?

Despite this stupid analogy, is this not the EXACT situation in which we find coach Obama mired, along with his Democrat team? - stuck at midfield- uncertain - with time about to expire?

It was all looking so promising for the Demo-Colts, until underdog Scott Brown scooped up their fumble, and ran upfield the other way.

And imagine being one of the many hapless fools, having bet heavily on the Democrats -certain they would pass Obama-care - despite the overwhelming opposition of the "fans"...the American people.

And what about Barry Rand? - the slimy creep running the AARP- always claiming his organization to be "solidly behind the President's plan to make healthcare affordable to all."

Rumor has it that Rand hopped a slow boat to Tierra del Fuego...see ya later.

Or how about Dr. James J. Rohack, president of the (ahem-ahem) AMA, who threw in his support early last May, saying: (quote)..."We pledge to work with the President for passage of health reform legislation, to expand access to high quality, affordable health care for all Americans."

Oh yeah?

So now, what shall become of the good Dr. Rohack? Will he be forced to set up practice in Haiti for time immemorial, knowing that 90% of all US physicians hate his guts, because he wasn't speaking for them?

Good luck in Port-au-Prince doc! They say the weather there is really nice!

Or how about our good Senator friends, Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson? Can they ever go home again?

Considering the vitriol they're sure to face from their constituents, perhaps their situations now call for either the Haiti or Tierra del Fuego option - or maybe a stint in the Peace Corps - until it all blows over.

But let us not tally our chickens before all the eggs hatch: we still have that wonderful speaker of the House, Nazi Pelosi, to count out; and scary Harry (Reid) still lurks beneath the horizon, ready to surface with yet another Machiavellian compromise.

But with all the rumors flying, what can we really expect? - as everyone tries to figure out the corrupto-crat's next move on Obamacare - if they even have one.

Richard Morris, Fox News' crack political pundit, claims he's got the real story: (quote)..."The result could go either way"... "It hinges on 23 moderate House Democrats, vulnerable in the 2010 election, terrified by the Brown victory in Massachusetts, barely held in line by Pelosi, and up for grabs in this new healthcare vote..."

Then MSNBC weighed in, reporting..."Speaker Pelosi has 218 votes to pass the Senate health care bill, having been assured by the Senate that a “sidecar” series of amendments would follow through any House vote that gave approval to the final Senate bill."

"This would all be done through reconciliation."

But thankfully, it was only MSNBC twisting words - filling up air time.

When questioned, it turns out Pelosi had actually stipulated the Senate must make changes through reconciliation FIRST - only then would the House vote.

Unbelievable! Obamacare - a radioactive political hot potato

So who's on first? What it really boils down to are a complex miasma of parliamentary procedural details. Pelosi passes the ball over to the Senate, to deal with "the fixes" BEFORE her chamber will take up the bill. But the Senate claims procedural difficulties, so the House must go first.

Ladies and gentlemen; what we have here is old-style vaudeville: neither side really wants to do anything, but both must act like they do!

Perhaps one senior Senate aide said it best: (quote)... “We are being asked to pass a piece of legislation - that amends another piece of legislation - which does not exist yet. We are having problems with the CBO and the parliamentarian”...“Neither the House nor the Senate have figured out how to pass a reconciliation sidecar first...”

When it comes to enacting policy, instead of budgets, the US Senate has used the reconciliation process only grudgingly:

COBRA (Combined Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) needed a reconciliation vote to get health care to the unemployed made into law.

But COBRA was a straightforward issue.

With Obamacare languishing in limbo, it becomes a complex matter of "sequencing." The House would have to pass something first - the nature of the Senate’s current objection.

Ultimately, the undoing of Obamacare may fall back to Ben Nelson, and his phony stand on abortion - having succeeded in getting Harry Reid to make a hollow compromise, where the Senate bill ACTUALLY does fund government abortions, while Reid claims it does NOT.

Another Senate aid weighed in, explaining why changing the abortion language through reconciliation will NOT work:

(Quote)..."Reconciliation rules forbid the inclusion of any provisions that have no effect on the budget"..."When the abortion language in the Senate bill was added as a last-minute compromise, the CBO certified that it had no budgetary effect." (Otherwise, the whole bill would have to be rescored.) That makes it very hard, if not impossible, to argue that the abortion provisions can be changed using the reconciliation process..."

Hoo-whee baby! This puts House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a real bind!

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), is sticking to his guns: warning that he has at least 10 Democrats (including himself) who voted for the House bill, but bitterly oppose the Senate bill’s abortion language.

And without Stupak’s holdouts, getting the votes to pass the Senate bill in the House - even if other fixes are made using reconciliation - becomes a longshot heard 'round the world.

Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) described health care reform... "having only weeks to live." And when radical leftist, Bernie Sanders (D- VT) bargains for downsizing the Senate bill, one can be sure the "sidecar strategy" is on life support.

Pelosi will pull the plug - because she will never risk a defeat in any House floor vote. But to maintain "decorum," she is urging lawmakers "take whatever time it takes to do it."

Which brings us to Obama's nebulous, State of the Union speech - and his "vow" to move forward with healthcare:

What the heck did he actually say? It sounded defiant...sort of. It sounded like he was roundly committed to getting Obamacare passed..sort of.

Actually, what our anti-president said amounted to taking temperatures, rather than twisting arms: he’ll never stop fighting on health care, but abhors even making a fist - let alone throwing a punch.

But this was Obama being Obama-esque: at first he seemed to step forward. But then, he seemed to back off.

Sound familiar?

That's right. Mr Obama - the great orator- was voting "present." Leopards never change their spots, even when they take up residence in the Oval Office.

Good health everyone.
 
 
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If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Posted by thekeenobserver on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 6:48:35 PM
 
November 29, 2009 - A California motorist is stopped at a busy Long Beach intersection:
 
Suddenly, his 2008 Toyota Tacoma pickup goes into roaring acceleration mode, forcing him to stand on the brakes with all his might - keeping the bucking truck from plowing into the heavy traffic.
 
But couldn't he just as easily have turned off the key? - or switched into neutral?
 
The driver has since parked the haunted truck in his garage, in fear of ever driving it again.
 
Other sudden acceleration incidents abound- all of them concerning Toyota-Lexus models.
 
Amid widening concern, including an August 28 crash that killed a California Highway Patrolman and his family, Toyota has repeatedly pointed to "floor mat entrapment" as the problem.
 
Floor mat entrapment???
 
But testimony from thousands of motorists would bear out a different cause: electronic throttles - another in a long series of coo-coo ideas that defy that hallowed, timeless axiom: "If it ain't broke, DONT FIX IT!"
 
Complaints of sudden acceleration from Toyota and Lexus drivers shot up almost immediately after the automaker switched to its electronic throttle system, using sensors, microprocessors, and modulators - rather than a simple steel cable - to connect the driver's foot to the engine.
 
Not surprisingly, Toyota staunchly maintains that electronic throttle controls are not to blame.
 
British engineers, aware of similar incidents in merry-olde England, were more forthcoming..."With electronic throttles, drivers lose control of the engine"..."You're telling the computer to move the throttle to a certain level; however the computer decides whether it will obey..."
 
But isn't this emblematic of what's been happening in the auto industry throughout the last 30 years? Huge increases in vehicle complexity - going backwards in the name of "progress."
 
Of course, the auto industry contends it's gone about a "technological revolution."
 
Some revolution. Anywhere from 1/4 to 1/3rd of every vehicle's sky-high price reflects its increasingly complex electronics content - which begs the obvious question:
 
Why did automakers ever go this "route" in the first place?
 
Take the classic cars from the 50's, 60's and 70's...is there any comparison?
 
For one thing, the old cars had CHROME. They looked spectacular - compared to the amorphous, strange-looking conveyances that prowl the roads today.
 
And when you opened the hood, viola! - one could actually discern an engine; not 55 miles of wires, compartments, connections, and strange-appearing apparati; as if the car is being propelled by a new Industrial Revolution.
 
But why? Why would automakers ruin a perfectly good thing?
 
Even worse, consider the egregious damage done to our nation's economy. Today's auto loan is the previous generation's home loan. Because of jaw-dropping sticker shock, tens of millions of people have since been shut out of the new car market - relegated to used vehicles, or taking the dreaded bus.
 
Recall the good ol' days, when Americans could afford to trade in their "old" cars every 3-4 years.
 
GM fluctuated anywhere between 50 to 55% of overall car sales. Ford and Chrysler were still considered part of the "Big Three".
 
The American auto industry was the Mother Goose that laid the golden egg of a booming American economy - lasting for half a century. It built America 's middle class after World War II - spawning millions of MANUFACTURING jobs, with an unlimited "economic-multiplier" effect.
 
Oil companies drilled for oil. Gas stations sold gas. Steel mills made steel, which required miners to mine coal, and iron ore producers to ship cargoes across the Great Lakes to the mills in the East and Midwest.
 
This was the "rust belt" back then. It was the economic envy of the world.
 
A person with no formal education could come out of high school, and live a life with a secure income and retirement-- all because of the AMERICAN auto industry.
 
The auto industry also provided entertainment - even motivation.
 
Every fall, the great American pastime would be to flock to dealer showrooms, "oohing and ahhing" over the stunningly beautiful new models the manufacturers would somehow manage to create every year.
 
Style was the mainstay - performance came standard. Everyone, young and old, was always thinking about their "dream car" and the day they would finally buy it.
 
Even after the OPEC oil-shock of 1973, and the subsequent 1974-75 deep recession, the US auto industry was able to "remake" itself and would make a stirring comeback.
 
Chrysler would introduce its Plymouth K-Car; Dodge revolutionized family transport when it introduced its minivan.
 
In September 1976, GM introduced their long-awaited, new line of B-bodied cars. TV commercials splashed the news all over the airwaves..."GM introduces its downsized Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac luxury cars; so visit your nearest GM dealer-showroom today!"
 
The commercial would fade out - showing the once-famous GM-Fisher Body logo.
 
The GM designers had done their homework; the B-bodied cars were a smash! They had gorgeous, back-pillared roof lines, with opera-style rear windows. They were well-engineered; they ran beautifully.
 
Americans responded in droves - flocking into GM showrooms; fascinated by the down-sized Cadillac Seville, and the Buick Riviera. The smaller Pontiac Bonneville was a huge hit!
 
Everyone wanted the new GM cars: Teenagers saved their paper route money. GMAC couldn't make the loans fast enough. All five GM divisions boomed; factories hummed . GM towns across the country, such as Pontiac and Flint Michigan, and Southgate California - were prospering as never before.
 
But in 1981, GM succumbed to the fatal disease - corporate greed; they decided to cheapen the product, with a concomitant HUGE price increase!
 
Insanity? Nope. This was the brainchild of new CEO Roger Smith (Michael Moore's friend); the man that ruined GM, and gave foreign manufacturers their long-awaited "foot-in-the-door."
 
Roger Smith - "Mr. Bottom Line" - was a no-nonsense type accountant, who had started with GM way back in1949.
 
It was Smith's bright idea to hose the American public: make GM's cars even SMALLER, with cheaper parts; design all the models from the same basic body shell; then power them with engines worthy of a sewing machine.
 
Smith then scrapped the 50,000-mile warranty. Evidently, he sat up nights, thinking of ways to increase profit margins, and goose the price of GM's stock.
 
Finally would come his piece' de resistance'...add more electronics - make the cars too complex to be repaired outside the dealership. Put all the backyard and neighborhood mechanics out of bid-ness.
 
It worked! In fact it worked all too well. It would eventually drive the American auto industry out of business; only to be rescued in the eleventh hour by the federal government, who now owns huge chunks of both GM and Chrysler.
 
But what about Ford? Why have they managed to hum along through thick 'n thin, surviving the harsh US auto climate of the last decade?
 
The answer, in a word, was the retro-Mustang- a smashing success; a knock-off of the 1968 GT model; that has kept Ford humming along in the black, with their recent announcement to hire 1200 new autoworkers in Illinois.
 
Not to be outdone, Dodge introduced their "all new" retro-Challenger, a gorgeous head turner, replete with the sleek design of the 1970 original Challenger - famous for its tire-scorching 340 motor, that could smoke the doors off virtually anything that pulled alongside.
 
And now GM, late to the game, has come out with its all new retro-Camaro, with the lines of the iconic 1969 model, sporting an optional 406HP Corvette engine.
 
Not surprisingly, bolstered by sales of its new muscle-Camaro, GM is now boasting of a sudden "comeback," and has decided to permanently retain the services of "temporary CEO" Ed Whitacre.
 
But why stop there? What if it could be deja vu all over again for GM, and by 2015, they were able to make a miraculous comeback, and once again garner 50% of the US auto market share?
 
But how?
 
Start with the original muscle car; bring back the 1964 GTO!
 
Even young men today are startled by the stunning beauty and rakish design of the original GTO. Just go to any classic car show; watch how people gather around anyone who pulls in driving a 1964 GTO - the car that "changed everything."
 
And if Ed Whitacre could "get religion" and bring back the old Pontiac warhorse, lines would be around the block to get a test-drive; teenagers everywhere would again be saving up; GMAC couldn't make the loans fast enough - IF the car could be bought for UNDER 15 grand.
 
Impossible? Nope!
 
GM would have to go totally retro: dump all the electronics; dump all the plastic; add the original chrome; and install a VISIBLE V-8 engine with an actual CARBURATOR (remember those?). Make the leather bucket seats and AC options.
 
Within months, GM car sales would be booming again; the old rusty car towns would re-awaken.
 
Engineers would be planning the resurrection of more GM icons: the 1968 Chevelle SS Malibu, and the 1970 Firebird - having finally realized that times may change, but the character of the American people- and their beloved lifestyles - do not.
 
With the economy heading the way it is, GM needs to get everyone buying American mid-sized muscle, instead of those annoying, "fast’ n furious" Honda and Subaru projectiles.
 
And the retro-GTO would be just the way to do it.
 
 
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the best and the brightest

Posted by thekeenobserver on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 7:09:07 PM
 
When Harry Truman left the White House, he was about as popular as dengue fever.

Truman was unrelentingly vilified for firing UN commander General Douglas McArthur; and for his supposed mishandling of the Korean war. Tens of thousands of "strongly-worded" telegrams opposing MacArthur's dismissal had flooded the White House.

After throwing out the first pitch,Truman was roundly booed at the opening game of the 1951 baseball season for the Washington Senators.

Not surprisingly, revisionist historians have downplayed Truman; so you never hear of the heroic stand he took against Stalin, after Franklin Roosevelt had opened the door for Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

The media despised the blunt-talking, monotone-voiced Truman - the reason why it took so long for him to assume his place in history as the boldest, most intuitive president of the 20th century.

After his death in April 1945, Truman had inherited Roosevelt's Alice-in-wonderland notion that the post-war world would be secure under the aegis of the UN, patrolled by the "big four" policemen... US, China, Britain and the Soviet Union, and war would be obsolete.

Domestically, Roosevelt’s New Deal Cabinet members had been espousers of Marxism, and pursued roiling societal and political changes.

But Truman, immediatelty after taking office, threw aside all of Roosevelt's liberalism, and shifted US foreign policy into one of Communist containment - even rollback.

After his decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan, under-Secretary of State Dean Acheson tried to reign-in the highly-aggressive Truman, who resented the truculence of Soviet diplomacy, and Stalin's failure to hold free elections in Poland, or withdraw his army from the border of northern Iran.

Unlike Roosevelt, Truman had considered Iran so strategically crucial, that he threatened to drop a third “super-bomb” if the Red Army didn’t withdraw.

But it was an IDLE threat - the US had no third atomic bomb at the time. Truman had effected one of history's greatest geopolitical bluffs. A grievously-humbled Josef Stalin ordered his army back to Azerbaijan.

By 1947, with the U.S. being the world's only atomic power, Truman now considered the Soviet threat to be primarily political, advocating economic assistance (e.g., the Marshall Plan) and psychological warfare (overt propaganda and covert operations) to counter the spread of Soviet influence.

Under Truman, Congress passed the National Security Act - establishing the Department of Defense, the NSC (National Security Council), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to train spies.

In June 1948, the NSC began it's "counterforce vs communism" - authorizing "preventive direct action" (e.g. underground resistance movements) carried out under deceptions. Thus, the U.S. could "plausibly disclaim" any responsibility.

In 1949, the newly-issued Truman Doctrine put "containment" into effect - offering American aid to any country threatened by communist expansion.

Truman then devised NATO - the "ultimate entangling alliance" - an armed attack against one ally would be considered an attack against all.

In retrospect, Truman rescued western Europe from Stalin; established a highly-effective Communist-hunting CIA, and had set forth a stalwart foreign policy precedent for three generations to come.

His decision not to seek a third term (being the last president permitted to do so) was emblematic of a communist-sympathizing, liberal-loving media that had plagued Mr. Truman throughout the post-war years.

But now, he is ranked among America 's greatest presidents.

So why has it taken fully half a century to appreciate the greatness of Truman? Wasn't Franklin Roosevelt supposedly the greatest President of his day?

But perception is REALITY; whether it wasTruman, or later, Ronald Reagan; any STRONG U.S. president who cast a long shadow on the world's stage (and preserved America's primacy) has been downplayed by the liberal media, as though they had done some sort of harm- that they had alienated the world; and our enemies were justified in striking back.

So is it any wonder that a young, Nigerian terrorist can come within a puff of smoke of bringing down a US jetliner; and instead of being harshly-interrogated by the CIA, he is rushed off to a comfortable police station, and advised of his right to remain silent?

And to add insult to injury, the press banishes the unfolding story to its back pages!

Who's side are these media people on anyway? Where do they all come from? Like Michelle Obama, they seem unanimous in their belief: "America is a downright mean country."

Indeed, America's "best and brightest" (the liberals) are now in control of the most influential positions: the media, the education establishment, and the political arena.

The result? Liberalism - the opposite of patriotism- is lurking beneath every problem that faces our society; with no end in sight.

How about the problems with education, and the dumbing-down of our public-school children?

Yup; it's those wonderful liberals, who have taken control of the teacher's unions, and put forth a curriculum of indoctrination- not education- espousing global warming instead of science, and teaching radical environmentalism in place of civics.

Or how about the nation's burgeoning prison population?

Once again, it's liberals who insist that prisoners have three squares, first-rate health care, cable television, telephones, libraries, exercise rooms, and all the comforts of home.

RESULT? Recidivism is at an all time high; criminals look forward to going back to the big house, where they can re-establish their gang ties - sharing in the latest techniques for robbery, killing, and mayhem.

Now for sure, not all liberals are mean-spirited, unpatriotic, nasty people: but where do they get this bizarre idea that everything has to be FAIR?

Indeed, the root of all liberal evil is their idea of EQUALITY!

-That poor people have a right to a "working class" lifestyle
-That criminals should be given the benefit of the doubt, and have second, third, and fourth chances to "get themselves right."
- That the United States has no right support one country in favor over another, that all nations should be treated as equals.

Yes, to a liberal, the world must always be improving itself:

Everyone should act nice; no one should ever lose; that all outcomes should be the same.

Back in the 1930's, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s brain trust (like Obama's) had strong Harvard representation.

Professor of Political Economy Alvin H. Hansen was one of the central architects of the New Deal. Harvard Business School Lecturer Adolph Berle, and Harvard Law School Professor Felix Frankfurter, served as close advisors; with Frankfurter later becoming one of FDR’s appointees to the Supreme Court.

And for seventy-five years now, this Ivy League-generated idea that the world can be made a "utopian place" - has plagued every aspect of American life:

-Higher taxes
-Higher crime rates
-Higher unemployment
-Increasing terrorist attacks
-Divisiveness within the nation

So give it a rest liberals. You've had over three quarters of a century to experiment; you've made America that great progressive chemistry lab, and the experiments have all blown up in your faces.

Please, try and do the impossible: admit that you're wrong.

And in the spirit of equality, stop worshipping that liberal icon, Franklin Roosevelt.

Admit it; Harry Truman was the better President.
 
 
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The Limited Government Revolution

Posted by thekeenobserver on Monday, January 25, 2010 6:25:48 PM
 

Why did the voters from Massachusetts REALLY elect Scott Brown?

 

(begin piano music)

 

My country tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty; of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died,

Land of the pilgrim's pride...
From ever-ree mountainside, let freedom ring!

 

That's right America: just like 240 yeras ago - the last time we were faced with tyranny - the people from Massachusetts had the same resounding message for Barack Obama, as they once conveyed to King George III..."LEAVE US the *#!!*%** ALONE!" 

 

The special election in Massachustts wasn't about "healthcare" or being nice to terrorists. It wasn't about jobs. It was the voters - in rebellion. 

 

Long ago, back in 1760's, the American colonies had already achieved their status as the wealthiest land on earth.

98% of Americans lived on farms. 70% of those owned their property. They were flush: they sold half their crops for cash; they owned animals, and enjoyed meat everyday - a high-protein diet that made the height of the average American male fully 3 inches taller than his British counterpart.

 

Aside from a stable, a highly-profitable agricultural economy, Americans were also skilfull international traders. 

 

After rum's development in the Caribbean, its manufacture and export became the largest and most prosperous industry in colonial New England -  a coveted source of cash imports.

 

American rum was lighter - more aromatic - superior in character and flavor to the West Indies product.

 

Rhode Island's rum - like gold - was accepted as currency in Europe.

 

Estimates of rum consumption (before the American Revolutionary War) had every man, woman (even child) drinking an average of 15 quarts each year. Before going into battle, Continental Army soldiers were issued a sufficient "ration" of rum.

 

Rum enabled the colonists to offset their unfavorable balance of trade with England. And to produce it, required molasses as raw material.

 

To support such demand, a triangular trade pattern was established between Africa, the Caribbean, and the Colonies.

 

New England traders shipped rum to Africa in exchange for slaves; who were transported and sold to the West Indies - to work in the sugar plantations that produced the molasses.

 

Traders then returned with molasses to New England, selling it to rum producers.

 

The British - jealous of such prosperity - decided upon a tax, the Sugar Act. Colonial merchants were required to pay six-pence per gallon on foreign molasses.

 

The situation so disrupted the colonial economy (less currency available to purchase British manufactured goods) it would set the stage for revolt.

 

The Sons of Liberty arose in Massachusetts; and their protestations, having fallen on deaf ears, they began reacting with mob violence.

 

British tax collectors were tarred & feathered  - hung in effigy. Most fled the country in fear.

 

The Mother Country had been put on notice: the colonies would trade no more until all taxes were dropped!

 

But the Briritsh only responded with even MORE taxes: the Stamp act; then the Townshend Acts, which taxed everything from glass, paper, lead, and TEA!

 

Then, to protect the tax collectors, the British imposed the hated Quartering Act, which saw British Redcoats quartered in homes - making the colonials slaves - resulting of course, in the War of Independence.

 

But think about it: isn't this EXACTLY what's been happening again?

 

Is not the IRS fulfulling the same role as the Redcoats? - and the Congress acting like the British parliament? Is not Harry Reid akin to the once-hated Lord North?

 

The American Revolution was fought primarily for one reason: FREEDOM - one's right to be left alone - the basis for the Constitution.  A document created to LIMIT the federal government.

 

Two centuries later would mark the beginning of the Reagan Revolution. And the shot heard 'round the world was when Reagan quipped ironically..."I'm from the government and I'm here to help..."

 

But Reagan failed to deliver on his promise to ..."get government off our backs."

 

The federal bureaucracy only grew larger in size; and with it, the national debt.

 

And now, a week after his Massachusetts' disaster, Barack Obama - like Britain 240 years before- has turned a deaf ear to America, and will press onward with his "mandate"...tyranny for all! 

 

"I'm not going to walk away," said Obama..."My determination and resolve are only stronger."

 

So forget the tea party; forget that you're an "independent." Now is not the time to classify oneself, but to UNITE with one voice and tell Washington DC..."WE WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE!"

 

Ever since Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal," Congress has run roughshod over the 10th Amendment. The federal government now exists NOT for the American people, but to enslave us within its voracious, ever-intrusive bonds.

 

However, OUR Constitution gives the Federal Government but 18 specific, enumerated powers:
 
1)To lay and collect taxes
2)To borrow money
3)To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states
4)To establish a uniform rule of naturalization

5)To coin money, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
6)To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting
7)To establish post offices
8)To promote science and the useful arts
9)To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
10)To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas,
 
11)To declare war
12)To raise and support armies,
13)To provide and maintain a navy
14)To make rules for the regulation of the land and naval forces;
15)To provide for calling forth the militia to suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
16)To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia
 
17)To exercise exclusive legislation over such a district (not exceeding ten miles square) to become the seat of the government of the United States
 
18)To make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.
 
And now, in 2010, marks the beginning of "the limited government revolution"...to once and for all get government out of our lives, and out of our wallets - that we be left alone!
 
Starting immediately, demand ALL congresspeople respect the 10th amendment - or they'll be voted OUT!
 
(QUOTE)..."The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
 
In the Founders' view, state and local governments were free to experiment: like the opinion put forth by Supreme Court Justice, Louis Brandeis, (quote)... "to serve as "laboratories"... "in areas prohibited to the federal government..."
 
So why not make everyone happy? Who needs a revolution?
 
If you want government-run healthcare, just move to Massachusetts, or Oregon! But leave it up to the rest of the states to vote individually.
 
Let all be resolved by the strict interpretation of the Tenth Amendment, and then proceed onward: Let the states be the social laboratories of our great country.
 
We could have 'industrious' states (no welfare, no food stamps, etc - charities perform that); and there could be welfare states. Let the duly-elected legislatures of each individual state decide.
 
What could be more democratic than that?
 
We could have "right to work" states, and there could be "prevailing wage" states.
 
We could have states that support deficit-spending, and those that forbid it.
 
There could exist states that allow immmigration, and those that deny it.
 
This would all be done in a reasonable, GRADUAL, period of time - entitlements would be "grandfathered." 

But the greatest satisfaction would come in knowing that...it's "on the way."
 
Americans - the most mobile society on earth - instead of forcing their liberal (or conservative) views, could simply move to wherever (whenever), and live happily ever-after!
 
Yup; one big happy family of states, protected by a federal government that provides ONLY for the common defense and promotes the general welfare; and leaves the banks, roads and bridges, and law enforcement and courts (and everything else) up to the states - like our Founders (and Ronald Reagan) always intended.
 
Remember that famous "Reaganism"? - government doesn't solve any problems; government IS the problem!
 
The old gipper lives on!
 
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The Democrats...party of the century?

Posted by thekeenobserver on Friday, January 22, 2010 10:45:30 PM

QUESTION: Should Senator Robert Menendez be the one to replace Conan O'brien?

This man is a veritable laugh riot! Who needs Leno?

In recent comments to Politico, the New Jersey Democrat boldly predicted ..."January's special election in Massachusetts is NOT a bellweather for November!”

Hardy-har- har!

Even funnier (said Menendez)...“We can see how the tide can turn in 10 months... Democrats have got to be aggressive, defining both themselves and their opponents early on — and remind the American people what the Republicans would do to this country."

(loud guffaws!)

Memo to NBC: Sign this guy up right now!

Either Menendez is terminally amnesic, or delusional - perhaps both.

Evidently, he seems to have forgotten what the democrats would do to this country if Martha Coakley had won:

The USA would have been transformed into the USSA - the United Socialist States of America.

Had the democrats maintained 60 Senate votes - between now and the November mid-terms - Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would have been in a feeding frenzy!

Mainstream Americans would have awakened each day to an unending political nightmare:

- government-run healthcare
- cap 'n trade
- card check
- alien immigrant amnesty
- universal voter registration
- the value-added tax
- another leftist radical appointed to the Supreme Court
- EPA clean air challenges to the status quo
- increasing the debt-ceiling to $15 trillion
- 3rd and 4th economic stimuli
- a "W" shaped double-dip recesssion

Yet Menendez insinuates that the Republicans would somehow be worse?

But what could worse than liberalism? Hasn't that been the democrats' mantra for the last 100 years?

Recall the early 20th century days of democrat Woodrow Wilson, considered by "historians" as one of the "greats."

Wilson was inspired by the writings of Hegel - who, coincidentally, was the hero of Karl Marx.

Wilson gave us the Federal Reserve, the income tax, as well as laying the ground work for the United Nations.

Wilson was a progressive, who wrote..."the essence of Progressivism is that the individual "marry his interests to the state."

Of course, liberal revisionist history has omitted all this; leaving one to believe Wilson was iconic - having led America to victory in the First World War.

But somehow they didn't include the rest of the story.

Or how about the greatest democratic president of all time? - Franklin Delano Rosevelt!

Supposedly, FDR inspired America to victory in the Second World War.

But was it actually the other way around?

Had it not been for World War II, the Great Depression would have lasted yet another five years. The socialist Roosevelt would've died in disgrace - his reputation in shambles.

Even after war broke out in Europe in 1939, Roosevelt - acutely aware of Nazi Germany's threat - had decided to play politics from the outset.

Fully 75% of Americans were against any involvement in the war; and Roosevelt was tracking the polls.

Throughout 1940, he had repeatedly turned down Winston Churchill's desperate pleas for old US naval destroyers - as German U-boats were about to completely strangle Britain with their unending attacks on Allied convoys.

In fact, it wasn't until Christmas 1940, AFTER his landslide re-election for a third term, that Roosevelt first disclosed his plan "to eliminate the dollar sign from our aid to those fighting Hitler."

On January 8, 1941, during his state of the union address, only then did FDR ask Congress for the Lend Lease Act - considered one of his great achievements.

But more than likely, if the election of 1940 had been closer, FDR would have denied Churchill the ships to fight the U-boat menace.

Roosevelt beat Willkie by 27,244,160 votes to 22,305,198 - wide enough to give him a "political mandate" to more closely involve the US in the war - and Lend-Lease became law by March 1941.

But what if FDR had acted from his gut in EARLY 1940, and had NOT played politics with Churchill?

If Roosevelt had tossed popularity aside, and sent ships, planes, and armaments to the British - as Churchill had implored from the outset of the war- what then?

Would there have even been a Dunkirk? Could the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) have thwarted the Nazi thrust through the Ardennes, keeping France in the war?

Hitler would have been stopped in his tracks - retreating back to the Fatherland; and the Second World War may have been something only fictional - some author's bestseller.

But politics - not policy- has always been at the top of the democratic playbook.

Even John F Kennedy, America's most beloved president of the 20th century, was not immune to political crony-ism:

Despite his great success in the Oval Office before his assassination, Kennedy allowed federal government workers to unionize, starting in 1962.

Now, almost half a century later, government union pensions are bankrupting the country.

The SEIU and the AFSCME exist not because of a free marketplace, but from coerced taxes. The democratic party is no longer the party of the working man, but the party of the American socialist movement, seeking to engulf the private sector.

Next was the great liberal democrat, Lyndon Johnson, who not only blundered America into an unnecessary war (Vietnam), but was also germane in debasing the currency.

It was Johnson who set the economic precedent that has flourished to this very day-- run the printing presses at the federal reserve.

In all its previous wars, the U.S. had enacted either tax hikes, or selling what the old timers refer to as, "war bonds".

But LBJ ordered the fed to crank out $80 billion in unbacked paper currency -keeping his Great Society ship of state afloat - causing the US to abandon the gold standard, and precipitating an inflation problem that persists to the present day.

Then, in 1977, liberal democrat Jimmy Carter (Mr. Human Rights), immediately began his naive destruction of our foreign intelligence agencies; "gave back" the Panama canal to Panama; then allowed Iran to topple into the hands of Muslim extremists - the origin of the
war on terror.

When Carter left office in January 1981, US policies, both at home and abroad, were virtual basket cases - America was on life support.

And what about that wonderful liberal darling - Bill Clinton - and his reckless trusting of our "ally," the Chinese?

In February of 1996, Clinton authorized the export of critical booster-rocket and satellite technology to China, undercutting the Justice Department's investigation that it would greatly harm U.S. national security.

China was able to forego 20 years of difficult research; and is now practicing how to shoot down orbiting satellites -- all because of Clinton's insatiable appetite for campaign contributions, which helped to finance his 1996 re-election.

And now that the Chinese are flush with cash (much of it ours) we may one day face a possible World War III - all courtesy of the political ambitions of Mr. William Jefferson Clinton.

In fact, were it not for the heroics of Harry Truman - who undid much of Franklin Roosevelt's damage at Yalta - Josef Stalin would have marched the Red Army into the Middle East, and the world's geopolitical map would have been tipped permanetly in favor of the Soviet Union; possibly making them the eventual winners of the Cold War.

In the last 100 years, it was Truman who stands out as the ONLY democrat, who in retrospect, historians can verify that he left a legacy of true greatness, and did America no harm.

Which brings us back to our good friend - and comedian - Senator Menendez, and his chilling caveat..."we must remind the American people what the Republicans would do to this country."

Does it get any funnier than that?
 
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Rosa Brooks - another enemy within

Posted by thekeenobserver on Thursday, January 21, 2010 7:23:32 PM
 
DEFINITION: "Free Radical" - atom or group of atoms that has at least one unpaired electron; and therefore, is unstable and highly reactive.
 
Free radicals seek to bond to other molecules, damaging important structures such as DNA chains - accelerating the developement of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and age-related illnesses.
 
So Mom was right all along! Eating broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower ARE beneficial! Like garlic, the sulfur they contain binds to the molecular chains of free radicals, rendering them essentially harmless.
 
Free radicals are commonly produced by external factors, such as x-rays, excessive sunlight, cigarette smoke...and extreme leftist presidents, like Barack Obama.
 
Like no president before, Obama has unleashed a seemingly unending stream of free radical ideologues upon us - to infiltrate our government, our military, and metastasize throughout Washington.
 
Van Jones? John Podesta? John Holdren? Janet Napolitano? Mark Lloyd? Cass Sunstein? Sotomayor? Is there any end to this radical parade of socialist-marxists? - each one with extremist views, that few Americans hold. 
 
Nevertheless, Mr. Obama has secured them all in keys positions within our government.
 
EXAMPLE: Dawn Johansen, Obama’s pick as head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the  Justice Department.
 
Johansen, a well-known feminist radical, believes pregnancy equals slavery. A  former top lawyer for the National Abortion Rights Action League, Johansen once used it as a basis for her argument in a 1989 US Supreme Court case.
 
Not surprisingly, Johansen is behind the policy that all terrorists be put into the US criminal court system- to be tried for their actions - and has thwarted efforts to pre-empt terrorist attacks. This enabled a 23-year old Nigerian suicide bomber to board Flight 253 to Detroit, without raising a hint of suspicion.
 
Or how about Harvard’s Ashton Carter as the Pentagon’s chief weapons buyer? - recently chosen as Obama's undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics.
 
Carter has been an outspoken opponent of the military for years...his chief experience being the ELIMINATION of weapons - not funding and creating them. - an enemy to the very job he is supposed to be filling!
 
But the most dangerous free radical could be Rosa Brooks - a ticking time bomb - now working in the Pentagon; influencing US military policy at the highest level.
 
Appointing Brooks to the Pentagon is like putting Hitler in charge of a pre-school:
 
In what has to be Obama's biggest blunder - or deliberate treason - the ex-Los Angeles Times columnist (and Georgetown law professor) has absolutely zero relevant national security qualifications for her position-  senior advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Military Policy.
 
Brooks once served as Special Counsel for George Soros’s Open Society Institute in New York. She also worked under Harold Koh, Legal Adviser to the State Department. 
 
But aside that Brooks once wrote editorials for the LA Times, what credibility does she have to serve as a top advisor (let alone strategist) at the Pentagon?
 
Brooks now plays a key role in shaping the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, as well as the wider "war" against al-Qaeda - something that should absolutely terrify every American!
 
Brooks, a fierce opponent of George Bush and the Iraq War, often wrote sarcastic articles belittling U.S military sacrifices: (quote)... “with so many thousands dead, and so many thousands more embittered, ‘winning’ isn’t really on the table anymore"..."The only question now is whether we can mitigate the damage.” 
 
Such words outdoubtedly lengthened the Iraqi war, letting al-Qaida believe - like Vietnam - we were ready to cut and run; and ultimately, they could  win.

Brooks' vitiolic hatred for the Bush administration has affected present morale in the CIA. US national security is at perilously low levels, like the Carter years.
 
She describes former President Bush as “our torturer in chief” - accusing everyone, from Cheney on down, of being “eager to embrace the values of military juntas,” while urging military personnel to speak out, regardless of the cost, when they think our civilian leaders have "gone beyond the pale” – basically, an open-ended call for the politicization of the armed forces.
 
So  is it any wonder why Major Hasan was able to shoot up Fort Hood?
 
With miltary political correctness now taken to extremes, can any soldier feel safe from our Muslim enemies?  We are the "infidels." No matter how much 'outreaching" we attempt, it is against Islamic faith to be friendly with Americans.
 
And with Brooks' new rules of engagement in the Afghan war, she has made victory for our troops a virtual impossiblity, while placing bullseyes on our soldiers' backs:
 
- U.S. soldiers may not fire at the enemy unless the enemy is preparing to fire first.
- U.S. forces cannot engage the enemy if civilians are present.

To a man, U.S. soldiers agree these rules make a perilous mission much more difficult, and decry having their hands tied by the political correctness of avoiding civilian casualties.
 
In a September 9, 2009 incident, restrictions were in effect when four U.S. Marines twice pleaded by radio for artillery support during combat in Kunar Province – and twice they were refused. Two hours later, the marines' position was overrun, and all four were killed.
 
During the intense firefight, U.S. commanders had cited the new rules -rejecting repeated calls to unleash artillery rounds at Taliban attackers dug into the slopes — despite being told repeatedly by the Marines that the Taliban "weren't near the village."
 
So where was the lamestream media about this?

If this had happened in Iraq five years ago, the NY Times would've featured the story in headlines; Larry King would be interviewing family survivors. Keith Olbermann would be apoplexic. 

Rosa Brooks is yet another of the diabolical, politically-correct ideologues appointed by Obama, whose real modus operandi is hatred for the military - seeking to destroy their morale; thereby encouraging our enemies to attack them even more aggressively.

Obama - like Clinton before - sees the military functioning as humanitarians: social workers who promote "ideals and values" - not soldiers who fight for victory and shoot down the enemy.

Yet Obama's supporters continue to insist that...we “give him a chance.”

But right off the bat, Obama exposed himself as the most radical anti-business, anti-productivity, anti-security president this side of a century - doing everything possible to usurp control, and consolidate his power over everyone.

America is now being led by a "free radical" president- who hates his own country, intends to destroy it, and build a repressive marxist state on the ruins.

Happy days everyone.
 
Tags: rosa brooks  
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Obama's sinking ship

Posted by thekeenobserver on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 7:07:51 PM

Pollsters? Who needs 'em?
 
For one thing, who even believes them?
 
How about the poll that claims..."67% of the American people oppose Barack Obama's health care plan; but the President's personal popularity with the voters remains strong..."
 
Oh sure.
 
Just like the poll about Afghanistan- the one that says..." 65% of Americans oppose the war, but 55% support the troops..."
 
Who thinks up these lies anyway? Especially the claim..."Obama remains "personally popular" with the American people."
 
But which ones?
 
Those residing in mental institutions? Sharecroppers? ACORN? Comedy Central? Trial lawyers? Persons on their 3rd renewal of unemployment comp?
 
Will these phony, pro-liberal media types EVER give up?
 
How stupid do they think we are?
 
Remember the Townhall meetings last August- when voters literally had to be held back from physically attacking Democratic congresspeople from their districts?
 
Yet the pollsters were constantly bantering..."Despite right-wing opposition, support among Americans for healthcare reform remains steady..."Overall, the American people support President Obama's intiative for healthcare reform..."
 
Overall? Where's that?
 
The Cabrini-Green housing projects? East LA? The Virgin Islands? East St. Louis? Inner-city Detroit? Guam?
 
Honestly, does anyone really believe these media surveys anymore?
 
After the election in Massachusetts, will these sickening liberal pollsters FINALLY realize that they're only further endangering their fast-sinking crediblity?
 
Why can't we have an HONEST poll every once in a while?
 
Why don't they ask some really blunt questions, like..."How sorry are you after voting for Barack Obama in 2008?
 
Or..."How terrified are you of government-run healthcare?"
 
How about..."Just how much do you hate Ben Nelson's guts?"
 
"Wouldn't you just love to wring Nancy Pelosi's sagging neck?"
 
"Does Janet Napolitano invoke occasional shouting at your television?"
 
"How many known ways are there to spell 'Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.'"
 
"If Barney Frank loses this November, will they declare it a national holiday?"
 
"Shouldn't Chuck Schumer be running for President of the Hair Club for Men?"
 
"Did Obama choose Eric Holder for AG because he was light-skinned, and spoke with no Ne-gro dialect, unless he wanted to?"
 
"Now that Scott Brown has been elected Senator, how many centuries will pass before they no longer term it as "Teddy Kennedy's seat?"
 
And last (but not least), the most basic, relevant, and overriding question of all...
 
"...Instead of completely destroying America's private healthcare system with a 2.5 trillion dollar federal boondoggle, could not the President and Congress institute a TRUST FUND for those deemed most needful of health coverage - and leave the rest of us alone?"
 
If CNN, or NBC, or USA Today, or even the Washington Post would actually come down from their high liberal horses, and ask some really PERTINENT questions - rather than this insipid, liberalese nonsense - their ratings/readership would spike almost overnight.
 
But don't hold your breath. Like brave naval captains, they'll all go down with Obama's fast-sinking ship.
 
 
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