Dubya Rears His Ugly Head Again

The last thing the GOP needs now is to listen to Dubya.  The first election of Obama was revulsion against this brain-dead Cheney/Rove puppet.   If the GOP had nominated Ron Paul instead of McCain in 2008, Paul would still be President.

Dubya is, and always has been, in the hip pockets of the old "plantation politicians" who call amnesty something else and who cannot see beyond the first stage of the four cycles of illegal immigration: illegal-to-legal-to-welfare are the first three; and in less than ten years, they reach the fourth stage:  citizens with Democrat voter ID cards. The cycles are kept alive and well by the bilingual education lobby who are totally dependent on illegal immigration.  Eliminate OBEMLA and you have reached the first stage of bringing this country back to sanity.

Approaching the Financial Cliff

As we approach the “financial cliff,” ostensibly debating which entitlements to cut, as a quid pro quo for increases in taxes, few of us expect the liberals to be swayed to give up a single entitlement or even reductions in their costs. Nobody thinks Obama is serious about allowing any entitlements to be cut; he is going to continue, in the words of the late, great Darrell Royal, to  “dance with what brung him;” that is, continue to pander to the entitlement class that elected, and re-elected, him. Some conservatives believe that Obama is willing to “go over the cliff,” and that he will brazenly let the country fall into bankruptcy rather than concede any meaningful cuts in entitlements.  There are no Reagan-like negotiators among the  Republican politicians in Congress today, not like the one that walked out of the meeting with Gorbachev and refused to give up his “Star Wars” defense, in preparation for escalation of the Cold War ahead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reykjav%C3%ADk_Summit 

That Reagan coup inspired Russian dissenters, like Boris Yeltsin, to stand up to Gorbachev, and it most certainly precipitated events that eventually led to the fall of the Iron Curtain.  Obama is trying to portray the image that Nikita Khrushchev did: that of a dictatorial, maniacal leader, willing to “go over the brink” to get his way.  Khrushchev’s tactic worked against Reagan’s predecessors:  JFK gave up three overseas missile bases to get Khrushchev to take his missiles out of Cuba in that “crisis.”  JFK also made a treaty to allow Communist Cuba to exist in perpetuity, and to never invade it again.

Liberals downplay it, but Reagan’s “walk-out” was the greatest diplomatic coup of modern history.  Unfortunately, there are no Republicans with the spine that Reagan had, willing to play brinkmanship with Obama—the way Ragan did with Gorbachev.  Most conservatives believe that Boehner has the spine of a jellyfish.

CUTTING THE FAT:

 One of the biggest and most counterproductive Government wastes is OBEMLA, a Washington bureaucracy dedicated to promulgation of bilingual education.  Bilingual education has been debated ad nauseam, and many Americans still do not even know what it is.  Many, if not most, think it is the practice of teaching foreign languages in public schools.  Almost everyone agrees that learning at least one foreign language is a good thing.  However, bilingual education DOES NOT teach a foreign language to native English speakers.  Not at all.  What it does is teach core public school subjects in the language of a child’s ethnic origin.  It is therefore an obstacle, not an aid, to learning English.  Many bilingual education teachers are themselves not native speakers of English and teach students “English” in a foreign language, inevitably with a foreign accent.  English is simply one of the core courses, including social studies, math, etc., that bilingual educators teach the students in their foreign tongue.

Activists who advocate bilingualism could care less about handicapping students in public schools.  Those of us who, over the years, have observed firsthand what they have wrought, have no doubt that bilingual education retards and impedes the learning of English, the tool they need most in securing meaningful employment (outside the bureaucracy of bilingual education). The advocates’ primary interest is their own job security, growing the bureaucracy, OBEMLA, and creating thousands of more teaching jobs, especially for minorities who cannot compete on an even keel with native English teachers in subjects other than foreign languages. Illegal immigration, therefore, is the “sine qua non” of the perpetuation of bilingual education.  These activists are among the stronger forces behind demands for “immigration reform,” and essentially, open borders. They will pay lip service to immigration control, but they know that the borders will never be controlled without the magnets that bring illegal aliens here: no, not jobs, but mainly, “entitlements.” The bilingual education activists, and their corrupt allies in Congress, also know that immigration cannot be controlled without a national identity card and vigorous enforcement of sanctions against employers and those who harbor illegal aliens for self-serving reasons.  They include subversive pseudo religious and political organizations who want to increase their membership with groups beholden to them for their “assistance” in aiding and abetting them to evade immigration laws.

The Obama Browbeat is Back

In Monday’s debate, Obama used the old “ACORN Browbeat” against Romney, but Romney was not intimidated.  The browbeat consists of craning the neck extremely forward toward the target and staring at him with an intense frown.  

Another word for the Obama Browbeat was the”get in their faces” tactic espoused by Obama and used by many of his agitators during the election of 2008.  Now that Americans have awakened, at least to some degree, its usefulness is currently about the same as (to use another Obama cliché) “horses and bayonets.”

Obama has had some practice at browbeating and filing lawsuits against banks--as a representative of ACORN.  One lending institution that Obama filed charges against was Citibank.  See:

http://iusbvision.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/obama-sued-citibank-under-cra-to-force-it-to-make-bad-loans/

There has been much controversy regarding the economic impact of the CRA. The current Administration, of course,  claims that the CRA is not to blame for so many bank failures   See The Subprime Mortgage Crisis at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

An excerpt:

 “Conservatives and libertarians have also debated the possible effects of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), with detractors claiming that the Act encouraged lending to uncreditworthy borrowers,[134][135][136][137] and defenders claiming a thirty year history of lending without increased risk.[138][139][140][141] Detractors also claim that amendments to the CRA in the mid-1990s, raised the amount of mortgages issued to otherwise unqualified low-income borrowers, and allowed the securitization of CRA-regulated mortgages, even though a fair number of them were subprime.[142][143]

“Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Sheila Bair have stated their belief that the CRA was not to blame for the crisis.”

Seeing Through The Obama Fog

We have heard much Obama rhetoric about the 14% tax rate that Governor Romney pays--for most of his income. Obama has demagogued that issue incessantly and the average citizen has no real clue as to what it's about.

Governor Mitt Romney is what is known as a "capital investor." Almost every capital asset in Ohio and all the U.S., was built by capital investors (yes, they, not the Government, DID build them). That includes nearly all the factories that used to provide an abundance of jobs in Ohio.

The tax rate for capital investors runs anywhere from 5% to 15%, depending upon the amounts invested and the length of time of the investments. There is no secret society of the super rich involved here. To use a common Obama cliché, everybody "has a shot" at the 15%, or lower tax rate. It is right there on every one's IRS Form 1040, Item No. 13. To determine the exact rate on capital gains, Item 13 refers you to IRS schedule D.

Until a few days ago, Obama demagogued the fact that Governor Romney had not submitted all of his tax returns. The tax returns of large capital investors is complicated and involves a lot of bookkeeping. When Romney submitted his 2011 tax return, it had 144 pages. How many of the agitators, including Obama, has knocked themselves out reading all 144 pages? I'll bet none. Romney also submitted summaries of tax returns for the past 20 years, each showing the source and amount of incomes and the taxes paid.

The lower tax rates for capital investors is a traditional incentive for those willing to risk their private funds to create jobs for others and to grow the national economy. Obama has never had a job in the private sector and one can see why he thinks that only the Government can create jobs. He thinks that any wealth outside the Government should be "redistributed" to all the people. Capital gains are, in fact, "redistributed" by creating jobs.

Obama has said that he wants to kill the 15% capital gains tax break for investors. If he does that, he will kill the incentive intended for capital investors, and the economy will stagnate more.

Bankruptcy is not a disgrace nor the end of a corporation like GM. Bankruptcy laws lead those industries back to solvency under the oversight of a receivership--designated banks or entities, assigned by the bankruptcy court.  Obama's Government bail-outs defeat the purpose of bankruptcy, passes the bill on to the tax payers and causes more national debt and more inflation. Moreover, Obama's bail-outs keep his same, incompetent, union-loyal CEOs in place--guaranteeing the need for another bailout a few years down the road.

Candy Crowley Was Unscrupulous

Candy Crowley set a precedent for a political debate "moderator" by injecting her erroneous opinion into the Romney-Obama debate and judged the veracity of a debater's statement. Her malfeasance went far beyond the scope of her authority--which is supposed to see to it that the debaters stick to the topics and stay within their time limits. America is suppose to decide if one party or the other is lying in the debates, not the moderator; she is not a judge; at best, a facilitator. The lies of Obama in the debate are too many to list here, and that is another topic I have discussed elsewhere and will discuss still more.

Governor Romney was 100% correct when he said that Obama, in his Rose Garden speech, did not call the Benghazi assassination an "act of terror."

What Obama said in the Rose Garden speech was a vague, ambiguous statement that "all acts of terrorism" would be punished. He did not then specify the Benghazi assassination of our ambassador to be an act of terrorism. At that point, neither Obama nor Hillary Clinton had ascribed the Benghazi incident to be an "act of terror." Both Obama and Hillary Clinton were still in a state of denial about the breakdown of intelligence and refused to admit that their inaction and failure to respond to a desperate call for help, had insured the death of our Ambassador. Hillary later volunteered to be another scapegoat for Obama. Scapegoat-ism has become a character trait and a flaw inside the Obama administration--at least since Fast and Furious. Noteworthy, he does not ever punish those who step up to be the scapegoats. 

Candy Crowley went far beyond the bounds of ethical behavior; she revealed herself to be totally biased and unfair to Governor Romney. She was distinctively unscrupulous.

The Presidential Debate: 10/16/2012

Last night, Obama regurgitated his campaign rhetoric of 2008.  If we want the same result that we have had for the last four years, then we should re-elect him.  We should disregard January 2, 2013, "Sequestration Day," when, at the demand of our creditors, we must sequester $100 billion dollars of the next budget; $50 billion from the military budget and $50 billion from the entitlement programs and use it to pay down the national debt. January 2 is coming regardless of who wins the election, and we need an experienced economist (Romney) to lead us through the troubled years ahead.

In his closing statement, Obama complained that he had been mis-characterized as not believing in self-reliance.

In Obama's case, words have spoken louder than action. Obama once loudly proclaimed, "You did not build that! Somebody else did!" Everything he utters screams that self reliance takes a back seat to the entitlement cult. Romney was modest in saying that only 47% of the population see themselves as victims and entitled to unearned equality in the socio-economic world. With his redistribution of wealth policies, Obama wants the entitlement cult to be 100% of Americans.

Obama says he would eliminate the 14% tax break incentive for investors (like Romney) who create jobs and grow the economy. In Obama's world, only the Government can create jobs; after all the Government has provided him with the only jobs he has ever had, so we can understand his narrow frame of reference. If he kills the 14% tax break for investors, he will kill job growth completely.

Is It Correct to Call Obama a Marxist?

Ellis Washington is one of the most noteworthy African-American legal scholars. Such amateurs as Eric Holder and Barack Obama cannot hold a candle to him.

Marxists, like Fidel Castro, Lenin and Trotsky perforce deny that they are Marxists--until they take over a country.

Ellis Washington, using the dialectic method of Socrates, makes a clear-cut case for Obama’s Marxist philosophy. You cannot constantly utter the maxims of Marxism and then declare that you disbelieve them. History repeatedly documents that Marxism’s path to power is deception of the masses, or the Proletarians, who usually are venal, uneducated and lacking in perceptive discernment, or objectivity. They all think they will prosper under Marxism. Marxist advocates always follow the Machiavellian creed of the end justifying any deceptive means.

Obama, when questioned, denied that he is a Marxist. That is like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar denying that he was going to steal a cookie. The old cliché comes into play:“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck…”

http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/is-obama-a-marxist...

Another fact that new supporters of Marxism cannot come to grips with is that the ideology always requires a police state--like that of Cuba--and that of the former Soviet Union. The reason is that mankind is naturally competitive and creative and they like to be rewarded for their efforts with accolades and remuneration. In a Marxist society, individualism is always repressed in favor of enforced mediocrity. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," a fundamental maxim of Marxism proscribes individual excellence in anything other than exaltation of the central government. That theory is expounded in the Marxist credo of "redistribution of
wealth," and preached and practiced until everyone reaches socio-economic strata of equality.

It is therefore perfectly legitimate and correct to call Obama a Marxist. Just ask Ellis Washington.

How Close Are We to Marxism?

Barack Obama never has come out and actually said that he is a Marxist. Marxists seldom do, during their revolutions, not until they are in FULL control of a Government. Fidel Castro did not announce that he was a Communist until a few months after his conquest of Cuba. However, that philosophy constantly exudes from everything Obama says in the political arena of economic theory.
***

Marxist Rob Sewell’s essay on Marxism:

“Just as the emerging bourgeoisie in its revolution against feudal society challenged the conservative ideas of the old feudal aristocracy, so the working class, in its fight for a new society, needs to challenge the dominant outlook of its own oppressor, the capitalist class. Of course, the ruling class, through its monopoly control of the mass media, the press, school, university and pulpit, consciously justifies its system of exploitation as the most ‘natural form of society’....”
http://www.marxist.com/what-is-dialectical-materialism.htm

An opposing point of view:

“Thank you, Barack Obama! You strayed off your carefully prefabricated script and let voters glimpse the real you more than at any time since you let slip your desire to “spread the wealth around” when you bumped into ”Joe the plumber” four years ago.
“Your public comments in Roanoke on July 13—“If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen”—were truly astounding. Mitt Romney called your remarks ‘insulting.’ A friend of mine used the word “ignorant.” Both are correct, but I would add another adjective: Marxist.....”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson/2012/07/19/obama-strays-from-the-script-reveals-an-ideology-hed-prefer-to-hide/

***
Conclusion:

Now go back to the essay by Rob Sewell. It doesn’t take a lot of intellect to see the contradictions in his theory. Capitalism DOES NOT own the press. Obama’s supporters do. Nor do they own any of the other institutions mentioned in the above paragraph. His supporters not only own the schools, they own the school of thought of Marxism, expounded by the unionized teachers and displayed in their support of Obama. Nor do capitalists own the pulpit. To debunk Sewell, all you have to do is sit through the sermons of almost any young Catholic priest, and the sermons of some protestants, particularly Jeremiah Wright. The blatant falsity of Sewell’s statement that capitalists own the universities is self-debunking when you consider that nearly all modern Marxists, including Obama, are products of the universities. We must conclude that the nation is closer to Marxist Government than we may have thought.

A Method to Obama Madness

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.”
(Aside quote by Polonius in Hamlet Act 2, scene 2.)

Recently, we all heard Obama’s “soothing” message to reassure his 47% that he will see to it that “...everyone has a shot.”

Those of us who have ignored the media hype that Obama is “handsome” and “articulate” have been noticing that neither is true; especially if you believe the validity of the old adage: "Pretty is as pretty does." The fallacious claim of Obama “articulacy” is more obvious—at least to those loyal to the Mother Tongue. In recent years, about 47% of the listeners’ aptitude in the English has been stunted by declining public education and by socialists’ and media promises of economic security to the masses, regardless of merit or individual performance.

Obama frequently displays his ineptitude in the idiomatic expressions in our national language, even though his accent isn't all that bad. Let’s take a close look at that phrase. By “everyone” he is reassuring his inveterate constituency of 47%, but he goes on to say that he represents “all Americans.” In one sense, as chief executive, that is true, to the detriment of those embedded in the remaining 53% who want to remain self-reliant; those who still believe in the work ethic.
But his phraseology, “everyone has a shot...,” deserves much more scrutiny than meets the eye.

Ineptitude in English sometimes works to the advantage of the speaker. His less-than-astute constituency may think they heard something that they did not hear, perhaps, “Everyone has an even break.” The only time I have heard the phrase where “everyone gets a shot” was at a turkey shoot where riflemen were trying to shoot the heads off turkeys at about 500 yards to win a turkey and money prize. The turkeys get more than their share of the “shots,” and that could be a possible image that Obama’s statement conveyed to those who are at odds with his socialist agenda.

So, where is the “method” to the madness? Ironically, ambiguous, contrived and misused, phrases sometimes serve those who utter them. They can be useful as an “out” when a statement comes back to bite them; they can always claim that they were “misinterpreted.” To those of us who have made a long-term study of Obama, his “shot,” means socio-economic equality, guaranteed in a perpetual “redistribution” of the wealth of this nation, from cradle to grave. It means an egalitarian society where each contributes according to his ability and receives according to her need. It is called Marxism.

One factor that upstart, adherents to Marxism always ignore is that it requires a police state. Human kind is naturally creative and competitive, and the species does not easily submit to enforced mediocrity.

The 47% Demarcation Line

There was nothing hidden about what Governor Romney said in the tape. He was speaking to a large audience, not some secret society, and he knew that it was being recorded. It was not whispered, oblivious to an open mike, like Obama’s promise to Russian President, Medvedev, that after he is re-elected, he will have more flexibility in weakening our defenses against Russian missiles.

Governor Romney simply defined the battle line, the 47% marker, which everybody already knows. Among other important factors, this election is about how soon, or whether, we become a socialist nation. This hype about the tape is just another ploy by the mainstream media to divert focus to something extraneous to the issue of the economy. Ironically, the Romney speech, made in 1998, is as germane to the issues of today's economy as it was in 1998. The mainstream media and Democrat strategists know that a non-issue is as good as a real issue to keep their entitlement-oriented constituency scared and in lockstep with their agenda. They also know that most of that 47%, cannot separate chaff from substance.

Hopefully, Romney can re-inspire those with a work ethic, those who believe in self-reliance, and bring about a re-birth of the spirit of free enterprise in this country. The creators of wealth, contrary to what Obama believes, are not slaves of the Government. Many are poised to move the remainder of their factories abroad if Obama wins re-election--to circumvent his re-distribution of their wealth—before he issues another executive order freezing exportation of more factories abroad. Seemingly, Obama recently facilitated them by signing the most recent free trade agreement with Korea, Peru and other third world countries; but perhaps he is astute enough to know that more unemployed, poor people are a temporary boon to his political agenda. However, capitalists know that political strategy changes from day to day, and they may have to move quickly.

To the ignorant, be advised that everyone can pay the same tax rate as Governor Romney if they risk their money in investments that create jobs and grow the economy. It's right there on your Form 1040, titled "capital gains," and it also displays the lower (about 15%) tax rate that capitalists pay. Governor Romney hides nothing. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Senate Finance Committee Chairman are both Obama appointees. They know exactly how much tax Governor Romney pays, and trust me, if he cheated, they would come after him.

The End of the Good Times

If we believe the polls, Obama is going to be re-elected.

An Obama re-election means that there are more consumers than producers. The Obama promise to "redistribute the wealth" in the U.S. does not take cognizance of the fact that wealth producers are not slaves of the state. The USSR and Russia learned that lesson the hard way, after a disastrous 70-year experiment.

Industrialists are watching this election closely and they are poised to move their remaining factories to foreign countries if Obama is re-elected.

The work ethic that made America great is dangling by a thread. The takers are now the majority and the taxpayers are the minority. Obama and Fed Chief Bernanke think that they can produce more wealth by printing up more paper money. Economists know that the value of money must be based on goods and services produced by people who believe in the work ethic. Those people are a dying breed in America.

Sequestration Begins January2

Some of us with knowledge of history and knowledge that history inevitably repeats itself are preparing for possible civil unrest, beginning January 2, 2013. We have been predicting the “day of reckoning” for many years, and it seems to be on the horizon. One Senator, Lindsey Graham, already wants to kick the can further down the road and postpone our showdown with our economic destiny.
However, the law requiring huge automatic budget cuts is called “sequestration,” and economic Armageddon seems to be waiting for whoever is elected President in November.

In fact, the winner may wish that he had lost. The automatic cuts were demanded by our creditors, including China. Since Obama was elected, our credit rating has been reduced by the International banks several unprecedented times and we pay more for credit, adding to our national debt.

“On Jan. 2, approximately $54.5 billion in new spending cuts will hit the Pentagon while domestic programs will suffer an equal $54.5 billion in reductions. All of the cuts would be jammed into the nine remaining months of the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, 2013, deepening the pain.”

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/19/usa-...

“WASHINGTON (AP)— It didn't take long for the Internet to start buzzing with conspiracy theories after the Social Security Administration posted a notice that it was purchasing 174,000 hollow-point bullets.
“Why is the agency that provides benefits to retirees, disabled workers, widows and children stockpiling ammunition? Whom are they going to use it on?
"It's not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest," the website Infowars.com said.
“Another website, The Daily Caller, said the bullets must be for use against American citizens, "since the SSA has never been used overseas to help foreign countries maintain control of their citizens."

http://news.yahoo.com/why-does-social-securit...

Government problems tend to come in bunches. We can expect some pipsqueak countries, like Iran, for example, to think that they can take advantage of America’s weakened military and political position to try to wipe out Israel, or we may see another domestic terror attack.(There are still 100 missing suitcase-size atomic bombs missing that were sold by a rogue KGB agent shortly before the collapse of the USSR.)

Will Obama's Nobel Peace Prize be Taken Away?

“STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP)— Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize's original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday.
The investigation comes after persistent complaints by a Norwegian peace researcher that the original purpose of the prize was to diminish the role of military power in international relations.
If the Stockholm County Administrative Board, which supervises foundations in Sweden's capital, finds that prize founder Alfred Nobel's will is not being honored, it has the authority to suspend award decisions going back three years — though that would be unlikely and unprecedented, said Mikael Wiman, a legal expert working for the county...”

http://news.yahoo.com/nobel-peace-prize-jury-...

If one studies the recent American recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize,(Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama) we see that they are essentially wimps that won the prize for back-peddling away from tyranny and bowing down to despots (literally, in the case of Barrack Obama). The people who have contributed most to world peace have actually been the opposite of the wimps who won, but did not deserve, the prize.

The best weapon against belligerents (the war mongers) of the world is application of the old theory: fighting fire with fire. Reduction of arms did not help the two originating countries: Norway and Sweden, combined at the time of the origin of the Prize, were later occupied by Nazi Germany.

Old “Blood and Guts” General George S. Patton probably contributed more to peace in Norway and Sweden than Albert Nobel and all of the recipients of his prize. It was Patton and his troops that stopped the Belgian Bulge, Hitler’s last act of desperation in WWII. Of course, Patton was never a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

President Franklin Roosevelt, who gave the go-ahead for the development of the atomic bomb, and Harry Truman, who okay-ed its dropping on Japan, were never considered for the Nobel Peace Prize, but their acts dwarf any of the acts of genuine peace-making by those chosen by the Nobel Prize Committee. Nor were the scientists who invented the atomic bomb, considered.

Among those eligible to submit nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize: College professors, mainly those in the liberal arts, submit nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. Former winners are also eligible to submit nominations. There is definitely a liberal bias in the nomination procedure for the prize. All of which have made the prize itself, meaningless; in fact, acts by the winners have often initiated actions (such as Obama's reduction in our armed forces and coddling despots like Iran's leader) have resulted in the weakening of the force that have held the war mongers in check.

Footnote: Ironically, the main use of Albert Nobel's invention, explosives, led to his wealth. His original dynamite factory became a munitions manufacturing plant.

Obama Hijacked Non-Union Pension Funds

Another big issue and evidence of another great crime is coming to a head today as Congressional Inquirers began to demand answers and accountability for missing pension funds. The Treasury Department axed pensions in 2009 for 20,000 non-union salaried retirees who worked for the Delphi auto parts union.

Obama’s punishment of Non-Unions by stealing their pensions showed that the Obama Administration considers non-union workers as something less than human beings and are not entitled to (judicial) due process before they are punished by sequestration of their own money.

The Obama Administration cannot—or will not—account for the disposition of these “missing” pension funds. Could the funds have possibly been intermingled with the Treasury bail-out funds to reduce the amount of money that the Treasury Department, headed by Timothy Geithner, had to rely on for the auto bailout? If so, it was expensive window-dressing for Obama—at the expense of the robbed pensioners

“Under 29 U.S.C. §1342, the PBGC is the only government entity that is legally empowered to initiate termination of a pension or make any official movements toward doing so. One email dated Thursday, April 2, 2009 shows PBGC staffer Joseph House discussing a meeting he and his colleagues were anticipating with the entire auto bailout team the following day.” (See first link below for source of quote.)

“Oh well”, the Democrats and union members might say, “What is another violation of law and another felony to the constitutionally –contemptuous Obama? He’ll get off the hook by blaming someone else and pettifogging the issue into oblivion by keeping the public focused on irrelevancies.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) is the agency that regulates pensions. It is actually a Government agency working together with the Treasury Department.

The Obama Administration is trying to blame the PBGC for the “missing funds.” President harry Truman’s favorite axiom was “The Buck Stops Here,” and there was a sign on his desk to that effect.

In the Obama Administration the buck stops on the lowest government bureaucrat that they can find that will make a suitable scapegoat—but they do not even punish the scapegoats! We saw that strategy in action in the Fast and Furious scandal where the Obama Administration is trying to obfuscate the issue by blaming lower-ranking bureaucrats. However, he has not fired any of the scapegoats that he his blamed—AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA LETS HIM GET AWAY WITH IT!

http://patdollard.com/2012/08/internal-emails-geithner-treasury-killed-pensions-of-20000-non-union-auto-workers/

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/15/house-ways-and-means-chairman-demands-delphi-pension-termination-documents-from-obama-administration/#ixzz246zi3j9q

Where We Are Headed

Obama has usurped the exclusive powers of Congress to regulate immigration in defiance of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. He has joined the ranks of criminals who violate 8 USC 1324 and, with his amnesty, 8 USC 1231. He has decided to grant illegal amnesty to millions of uneducated, unskilled, welfare-seeking trespassers that pick and choose which laws they want to comply with, and which ones they want to violate. He has created a cottage industry of illegal immigration for churches, racketeers, subversives and seditious activists. Obama's pastor and mentor, Jeremiah Wright is correct: the chickens have come home to roost, but he didn't tell you that he, and his parishioner and understudy, Obama, hatched them all.

Obama introduced third world politics into our Government when he arranged passage of Obama Care by paying bribes to at least five Democrat Congressmen, the most infamous of the two being the Corn-husker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase.

If the conservatives regain control of our Government, they have some gigantic tasks to keep this country from becoming a third world anarchy. The two foremost tasks are: re-institution of the powers of Congress, as assigned by the Constitution, re institution of regulated immigration. Then, the new Government must rescind Obama Care which will bankrupt Medicare within five years. They must remove those illegal residents who have a culture of lawlessness. Only immigrants who have demonstrated the ability to respect the rule of law should be allowed to immigrate to the U.S. The law already provides for exclusion of illegal aliens. Now Congress must re-institute the rule of law that requires enforcement.

Our freedom and national financial solvency are dangling by a thread. Unfortunately, Obama and his mischief-making staff have managed to engineer laws that will delay the collapse of our Government until after (they believe) he will be re-elected. If Obama succeeds, then our people are in for many trials, and tribulations. The country will be ripe for Obama to institute the type of Government that he has always planned for us: socialism, a prelude to Marxism and communism, which always requires a totalitarian type of government to enforce its dictates.

Juan Williams Spins the Obama Litany

Is Juan Williams trying to curry favor with Obama in order to get a more secure job? How much longer does he have with Fox News? If his job at Fox News is not in jeopardy, then Fox News is in jeopardy of losing a lot of viewers.

Williams was fired from NPR due to a “politically incorrect” statement he made regarding the fear some Americans have of flying on the same planes as other passengers that they can identify as Muslims. Here is what he said:

“…when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737

Lately, when Williams is brought on the O’Reilly Factor to give a liberal tilt to Obama’s views, he talks incessantly, regurgitating the Obama litany of lies regarding how the Administration is going to save Medicare, when Obama has already taken steps to do away with it. Obama Care, if not rescinded, will not take full force and effect for at least two years, and there is no plan for a smooth transition. Obama Care will take half a $trillion from Medicare over the next decade. Many doctors have already stopped taking Medicare patients because of the low payments they receive.

http://www.obamacarewatch.org/primer/medicare

Obama and Williams both misrepresent Paul Ryan’s plan, the only political plan on the horizon that has a chance to save Medicare. Today, Williams would not let John Sununu get a word in edgewise to voice the Paul Ryan Plan, and apparently O’Reilly is not able to control the NPR transplant. They should either fire him or put him in a job where he can write his liberal activist books and stay off the debate programs. He is still a Democrat who thinks they can only win if they stifle the opposition view by talking louder, heckling or doing whatever it takes to obfuscate or misrepresent the GOP policies and to impress the less intelligent. In short, he has become an obnoxious, vociferous, Obama trooper.

Some of us want to hear opposing views, the conservative view, and that is why we tune in to Fox News. Fox News had better be more careful what fired media people they rescue from NPR, CNN, etc. Greta Van Susteren worked out all right after being let go by CNN, but Williams has not forgotten his liberal bias and he seemingly does not want Fox News to promulgate any view other than his.

The Gutter is Battle Ground Zero

I predicted exactly what is happening in this Presidential election over a year ago. The thugs now in power have a heritage to maintain and they plan to do whatever it takes to stay in power. 2008 was easy for Obama. It was an easy capitulation by McCain who had no concept of gutter politics. Even his Viet Cong captors had more morals and values than his Presidential opponent, but the GOP made it easy for Obama by underestimating the decadence and degeneracy of the enemy, and by letting the New York Times choose their candidate.

In 2008, McCain had no concept of the “fight fire with truth” mode of battle. That begs a multi-faceted, rhetorical question: In 2012, how could Governor Romney expect any venue other than the gutter when taking on Candidate Obama; the same Obama who hob-knobbed with terrorist and Pentagon Bomber, Bill Ayers and his close associate, Bernadine Dorn; a candidate who was a member of America-hater, Jeremiah Wright’s congregation for over twenty years; a candidate who is married to a woman who declared that for the first time in her life, she became proud to be an American only after Obama became Democrat nominee for President; a candidate whose former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, (now mayor of Chicago) chose to serve in the Israel Army, rather than the American military, during the Gulf War of the 1990s--the same Rahm Emmanuel who, when interviewed about the gang warfare in South Chicago where there are daily between three and four killings, shrugged it off by saying that the Chicago thugs were merely engaging in “their culture?”

It is also the “culture” of Chicago politics.

Governor Mitt Romney had better start getting some tough, battle-hardened warriors martialed that can do battle in the gutter if he wants to survive his campaign against Obama. Governor Chris Christie of NJ would be a good start as VP candidate, but that is not likely to happen. Remember the “get in their faces” strategy of Obama in 2008? That is what Romney has to do, only with more intensity than Obama’s minions in 2008. Romney needs to get some gutter-battle-hardened warriors that do not necessarily adhere to the belief that old, Mormon values will prevail in this election.

Al Capone was never an elected Chicago politician, but he owned every politician in Chicago during Prohibition. He once beat the hell out of the Chicago mayor on the doorsteps of Chicago City Hall while the cops stood by, watched and made no arrest. If anything, Chicago is worse today than it was in Capone’s day.

The issues are important. We need to save America from Obama’s stated Marxist objective of “redistribution of the wealth,” to save America from taking the same direction taken by Marx, Lenin and Trotsky when Russia began their 70-year experiment of “redistribution of wealth,” also called “Communism” in 1917. But if Romney is to get his message across he has to contemporaneously fight corrupt fire with truthful fire, and then, with good timing, opportunely address the issue of the economy that has been wrecked by Obama after introducing the nation to the poverty of gutter, Chicago politics. The Obama camp will use every weapon of gutter politics at their disposal: lies, distortions, intrigue, libel, innuendo, and slander. Romney needs to counter with truth, the deadliest weapon against gutter politicians.

Governor Romney and the rest of the nation need to know our enemy. There have been too many corrupt, convicted and indicted Chicago and Illinois politicians to put on one forum post, but a good place to start is this web site (scroll down, past the impressive cover page):

http://www.illinoisprisontalk.org/index.php?topic=25851.0

The Obama, Axelrod, Media Spin on Unemployment

It is amusing how Barack Obama, his Advisor, David Axelrod, and the Democrat-biased media are spinning the nation’s dismal unemployment statistics. Axelrod recently boasted to a TV reporter that “the Obama” Administration “produced 160,000 jobs” last month.

Axelrod ignores economists' estimate that the U.S. needs to create 250,000 jobs per month just to stay even and make a small dent in the unemployment rate. In spite of the 90,000 shortfall, Obama’s Administration are spinning the 160,000 jobs as a “triumph” because the shortfall is “less” than the previous month's.

College graduates who want an abundance of job opportunities commensurate with their training and skills, and still support Obama, are like Procrustes trying to fit a captive hostage into his bed. It is a “stretch.”

The Occupy Wall Street Movement was destroyed by Barack Obama when he did exactly what the “occupiers” were demonstrating against: he signed more free trade agreements that facilitated the transfer of more American Industries overseas to exploit cheap, foreign labor, and then “export” their products back into the U.S. tariff-free, exponentially increasing their profits. To see how Obama did it, go to:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glenn-hurowitz/obama-free-trade_b_1003846.html

The 8.3% unemployment rate does not reflect the actual number of people who are unemployed, or underemployed. Experts say it is closer to 15.3% if proper adjustments are made. After a period, usually 90 days, the Labor Department removes unemployed job applicants from the unemployed rolls and transfers them to an “unemployable” status. This causes an immediate drop in the “unemployed” rolls. This artificial reduction in the unemployed is an ongoing cycle that repeats itself every 90 days, or so, and each time it hap;ens, the Obama Administration is quick to point it out with optimism. The 8.3% would be higher if many (underemployed) college graduates and other skilled workers were not working part-time at the minimum wage in such service jobs as waiters and waitresses. Obama's extension of unemployment benefits is just a strategy for “buying time,” until after the election in November.

David Axelrod’s spin on unemployment figures can be illustrated in the following allegory:

Two 4-H club boys each have an acre of land on which to grow corn. Boy #1 grows only one bushel of corn on his acre, which he takes to the annual county fair in an elegantly-decorated bushel basket to exhibit. Boy #2 grows ten bushels of corn on his acre, and he takes the ten bushels to the fair to exhibit in ordinary bushel baskets. When a curious lady visitor asks how much land they each farmed, and asks the reason for the disparity, Boy #1 acknowledges the disparity but exuberantly answers, “Yes, but look inside my basket: it contains over ten thousand kernels of corn!”

That spin by 4-H boy #1 is an appeal to the same low mental capacity that David Axelrod is appealing to. The deficiency reflects the result of Obama's War on Capitalism, and his stated Marxist objective of “redistributing the wealth.” He is driving industry abroad, killing domestic incentive and supressing the competitive spirit the way Marxism suppressed it during the 70-year experiment of the USSR. Private entrepreneurs are "standing down," waiting to see if there is a future to capitalism. It all depends upon whether Obama wins election, and if he does, the answer is "no," at least not for four more years, and the damage he will do will stay with us for many years to come.

Logic Proves Harry Reid a Liar

Political demagoguery is never aimed at intelligent people. It is aimed at a group that the demagogue believes is ignorant and gullible enough to believe his/her distortions of facts. In the case of Senator Harry Reid’s claim that he has “anonymous” information that Governor Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes for the past ten years, we see the ultimate in demagoguery and outright lies. Any thinking person can readily arrive at that conclusion, if he approaches the issue with logic. That leaves the non-thinking and uninformed people as the target of Reid’s latest, blatant demagoguery.

Senator Reid shows the utmost contempt for the intelligence of the average American voter in attacking Romney’s integrity because of an allegedly, “anonymous,” telephone call of which he knows not the source. It speaks to just how low our Government has stooped in this election year. That begs the rhetorical question: Why should Reid care about being exposed as a demagogue if he has already adjudged the American voter to have the intellect of a moron, or lower? He is not worried about being made out a liar and demagogue, obviously. Harry Reid’s decision to make his “anonymous telephone call” an issue is based upon his warped sense of fairness and justice. It does not matter if the user of logic sees his “issue” as sinking to the level of reductio ad absurdum. Reid, in his fuzzy mental processes, thinks that he will be “vindicated” by the American voter, the intellect of which he has no esteem at all. It matters not to Reid if his “vindication” is no vindication at all; only if it is perceived as such by the majority of the electorate. Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, invented the tactic that Harry Reid is now employing. To Goebbels and Hitler, it mattered not in the least if there no grain of truth to their lies; the lies were successful if they could plant mere doubt in the mind of the target group.

The thinking person is usually informed, or knows how to inform himself though research. To determine if Reid is lying or demagoguing the issue, a thinking person should approach the conundrum in this manner: He should consider this fact: If Romney has committed tax fraud, Harry Reid himself has the authority to bring Romney to justice. How can that be? A thinking person needs a modicum of knowledge on how our Government works.

As Senate Majority Leader, Senator Harry Reid has power and influence over the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate Finance Committee oversees the functions of the Treasury Department, and its subsidiary, the IRS. The powers of Congress to subpoena records are among those powers enumerated to them by Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. A Democrat, Obama appointee, Timothy Geithner, is Secretary of the Treasury and is the chief law enforcement officer of the Treasury Department. The Commissioner of the IRS, Douglas H. Shulman, is an Obama appointee (Shulman was re-appointed by Obama after serving a few months in that position under the Bush Administration).

The Democrat-controlled IRS ALREADY KNOWS exactly how much taxes governor Mitt Romney has paid, at least as far back as seven years. The statute of limitations for tax fraud goes back six years from the current year; in effect seven years. Any IRS agent will tell you to keep your own records for at least seven years, proving that they have your records (at least) that far back and IRS agents will also tell you that they can audit your records that far back. Romney is an astute business man and no one can doubt that he knows that the IRS already has his records. That alone should vindicate him with Congress or anyone else as to whether or not he has ever committed tax fraud. There is no way he could do it without the IRS being aware. That is the reason that Romney has no fear of Harry Reid’s stupid allegations.

But Senator Harry Reid apparently has no compunctions against looking stupid, as long as only the intelligent people (an ever-growing minority in this country) see him as such. Reid has cast his lot with the ignorant masses that are gullible to his demagoguery. And that is a sad commentary when you consider the power he holds as Senate majority Leader.

The White Man's Burden

“…white people have an obligation to rule over, and encourage the cultural development of people from other ethnic and cultural backgrounds until they can take their place in the world economically and socially.”

Wikipedia (in re: Rudyard Kipling’s poem,“The White Man’s Burden.”)

The El Paso (Texas) “carpetbagger” interpretation of the “White Man’s Burden” is that the minority ethnic and races will NEVER “take their place” in the world economically and socially, but that they are a useful medium to portray in that fallacious role while they advance their own selfish agendas.

El Paso’s, and the liberal establishment’s, reasoning, as a whole, stem from the fact that their “programs” to make all the races equal has ingrained in the minorities a sense of “entitlement;” that they are entitled to positions of wealth and political power whether they have earned it or not. Almost every “equal opportunity” Government program produces that result, regardless of their stated intentions. That is the reason why almost every Anglo and Latino political “leader” in El Paso of the past few years is now either under investigation, already indicted, or in some cases already serving time in a Federal or State prison for corruption.

The hostility with which the Republican victory of Ted Cruz has been met in El Paso demonstrates the arrogance and indignity of the “carpetbagger mentality” of the Anglos in El Paso. In spite of their perennial lip service to the contrary, they never intended that any Hispanic ever become a significant leader in the Democrat Party in Texas. However, El Paso makes a good screen to advance the false image of such an idea. Sure, they’ve had their Hispanic mayors and they even sent a Hispanic to the House of Representatives in Washington. But anyone can be around Silvestre Reyes for less than a minute and determine that he has neither intelligence nor merit. He is just another product of the Government’s recent hysterical effort to elevate Hispanics to falsely-perceived “leadership” positions in the government, and they figured that a place like the Border Patrol would have been innocuous because the Border Patrol itself is a mere façade of an effort to dupe the people into thinking that the Government actually wants to stop illegal immigration. The Border Patrol thereby became a ready-made pool of incompetents that can live in a fantasyland without being hampered by a guilty conscious or a longing to re-join reality. When Reyes joined the Border Patrol, there were minimal education requirements.

That brings us back to the issue of the “white man’s burden.” If there ever was a “burden,” of the white man in El Paso, or even the whole country, it’s real purpose was to bring more poverty-stricken Hispanics under their hegemony, NOT to free them, or to make them equal in any way. El Paso is an exaggerated microsomal manifestation of the school of thought that pervades the liberal, activist hypocrites: they pose as altruists but only have self-serving interests at heart. Their “altruism” toward the Hispanics goes only as far as they think the Hispanics and other minorities can serve their own misguided purposes.

Here are the first two verses of Rudyard Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden:

“Take up the White man's burden --
Send forth the best ye breed --
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild --
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half devil and half child.

“Take up the White Man's burden --
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times mad plain.
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain…”

--Rudyard Kipling
February, 1899.

Obama Amnesty Takes Effect

Add Barack Obama’s Executive Order, called “Prosecutorial Discretion,” to the definitions of amnesty for illegal aliens. Other amnesties are, or have been, called by such names as Presumption of Lawful Admission, I&N Act of 1952, IRCA, 245(i), Extension of 245(i), the Dream Act and many others.

A little over a month has passed since Barack Obama, by his executive order called “prosecutorial discretion,” has effectively granted amnesty to every illegal alien that has been reached by an immigration attorney or one of the many “sanctuary movements.” They include political activist organizations and churches of almost every denomination. The organizations involved in the “sanctuary movement,” mostly religious organizations, are de facto racketeers that have simply given respectable, altruistic names to their smuggling, transporting and harboring of illegal aliens (all felonies under federal law, 8 USC 1324).

Yet, immigration lawyers that make their living off illegal immigrants, and all the other groups that harbor them, are still not satisfied that enough illegal aliens are allowed to remain in the U.S. They want every one of them left alone by immigration authorities until they can get around to bringing him/her under their (mostly illegal) shelters. Obama is pandering heavily to these lawyers and the organizations they represent. since the Morton Memo, the courts have been flooded with applications for prosecutorial discretion that has not already been granted by ICE at some level. It would be an understatement to call many of the court filings frivolous, since the Obama Amnesty itself is frivolous with its ulterior motive of increasing the count of Democrats in the country. The lawyers complaints and response to them by the intimidated bureaucrats that still try to do their jobs, in spite of Government subversion and sedition, is described in this article:

http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2012-07-24/feds-defend-deportation-rates-immigration-courts-backlog-swells


The Morton Memo:

http://www.ice.gov/doclib/secure-communities/pdf/prosecutorial-discretion-memo.pdf

John Morton is director of ICE, the agency charged with removing illegal aliens from the U.S. The most important aspect of the Morton Memo are the guidelines issued to all ICE agents for removing illegal aliens after they are apprehended. As you can see on the list below, the DHS (the Government, i.e., Barack Obama) is using almost any lame excuse to allow almost any illegal alien to remain in the U.S. The laundry list of excuses for granting “prosecutorial discretion” to illegal aliens are listed within the Morton Memo below. ( The excuses are bulleted in the Memo, but I have numbered them for ease of reference.) It should be noted in the Memo that Prosecutorial Discretion can be granted at any level within ICE, including the arresting officer.

Number 12, below is probably the most abused. Millions of households in the U.S. have illegal maids who are general housekeepers, and yes, they do sometimes take care of sick children when they stay out of school, and yes, they do help care for Granny or any handicapped person, permanent or temporary, in the household.

Number 9, below, staggers the imagination. “Conditions” in the illegal aliens’ home countries is not defined. It could simply mean vast unemployment or general poverty.

“…the agency's (ICE’s) civil immigration enforcement priorities;

1-the person's length of presence in the United States, with particular consideration given to presence while in lawful status;
2. the circumstances of the person's arrival in the United States and the manner of his or her entry, particularly if the alien came to the United States as a young child;
3. the person's pursuit of education in the United States, with particular consideration given to those who have graduated from a U.S. high school or have successfully pursued or are pursuing a college or advanced degrees at a legitimate institution of higher education in the United States;
4. whether the person, or the person's immediate relative, has served in the U.S. military, reserves, or national guard, with particular consideration given to those who served in combat;
5. the person's criminal history, including arrests, prior convictions, or outstanding arrest warrants;
6. the person's immigration history, including any prior removal, outstanding order of removal, prior denial of status, or evidence of fraud;
7. whether the person poses a national security or public safety concern;
8. the person's ties and contributions to the community, including family relationships;
9. the person's ties to the home country and conditions in the country;
10. the person's age, with particular consideration given to minors and the elderly;
11. whether the person has a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, child, or parent;
12. whether the person is the primary caretaker of a person with a mental or physical disability, minor, or seriously ill relative; ;
13. whether the person or the person's spouse is pregnant or nursing;
14. whether the person or the person's spouse suffers from severe mental or physical illness;
15. whether the person's nationality renders removal unlikely;
16. Whether the person is likely to be granted temporary or permanent status or other relief from removal, including as a relative ofa U.S. citizen or permanent resident;
17. whether the person is likely to be granted temporary or permanent status or other relief from removal, including as an asylum seeker, or a victim of domestic violence, human trafficking, or other crime; . and .
18. whether the person is currently cooperating or has cooperated with federal, state or local law enforcement authorities, such as ICE, the U.S. Attorneys or Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, or National Labor Relations Board, among others.”

Obama's Attack on Success

With proper authority, I published the following, copyrighted short story a few years ago as a free gift to readers on a web site. Among other things, it could be called an allegory on the conflict between socialism and capitalism. Many dystopian novels and short stories have been written on the proposition that, not only are we all created equal, but that we should all remain equal, socially and economically, throughout our lives. Theoretically, according to the egalitarian, social engineers, all mankind should be happier, but the dystopian novel demonstrates that the desired utopia invariably evolves into dystopia, and the end result is misery for all.

Such an egalitarian view of life as Obama's, conflicts with free enterprise, individual effort and merit. Where total equality, from cradle to grave, has become law, it has suppressed the competitive spirit. Obviously, Obama has contempt for individual accomplishment and thinks that all credit for success should go to the Government. That is the Marxist view, and the view of those who espouse a communist government. Here is the story:

NO HORSE LEFT BEHIND

Copyrighted Material


While awaiting the first race of the day, Jockey Pepe Rodriguez reclined on a locker room bench to rest his eyes before the race. He was especially tired today because he had sat up all night with a baby that had the colic. Using his helmet for a pillow, he promptly dozed off and began dreaming about how much he’d like to win the next race and take home a big rider’s fee to his wife, Laura.

* * *

The track bugler sounded the call to post for the first race of the day at the Border Bend race track, and the horses came onto the track. All horses walked leisurely through the post parade, then drifted toward the north end of the track, and meandered around the final turn where some jockeys kicked their mounts into a sauntering gallop to warm them up. Jake Marrow kicked Equal Equine, into a saunter, and close behind him, his fellow jockey and friend, Tommy Forcet, warmed up Four Score, A little further behind them, yet in earshot, was their friend, jockey Pepe Rodriguez, atop Glazed View.

By the time they reached the far side of the final turn, Tommy and Pepe caught up with Jake. The bright, spring sun bathed the racetrack with afternoon sunlight that enhanced the colorful scene. The slender, athletically built jockeys looked sharp in their fresh, clean racing silks that shimmered in the bright sun.

"Well, we have the two best horses," said Tommy to Jake. "It looks like a two way race between me and you, with the rest fighting it out for third place. Our horses will go this one-mile breezing."

"I’m not so sure about that," challenged Pepe.

"Truthfully, I’m not so sure either, Pepe," said Jake.

"What do you mean?" asked Pepe. "My horse is just as good as those you guys are riding."

"I meant I’m not so sure for a different reason." Jake’s eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed as if he were riding the longest shot in the race.

Tommy parroted Pepe’s question: "Yeah—what do you mean, Jake?"

"Well, Tommy, your horse and mine have superior breeding, the best times for this race, and our horses have earned, by far, the most money this racing season."

Jake added, "Right—and good trainers and proper schooling also come into the equation, but…"

"Mine has the best jockey," injected Pepe.

Jake’s brow remained furrowed. "Be all that as it may, guys, this racing card is a pilot program to introduce a new and more fair and balanced method of handicapping."

"How could they make it fairer?" queried Tommy. "Your horse and mine are carrying a hundred and twenty-two pounds for this race. Pepe’s is carrying one-twenty. None of the other eight horses in the race are carrying more than a hundred and fourteen. But we’ll still beat ‘em all easily. It’s in the horses’ breeding and class, I tell you. Trust me, old friend; this is going to be a race between you, Pepe, and me. Tell you what. The two of us that loses to the third, has to take him and his significant other out to dinner tonight."

"I’ll take part of that action," said Pepe.

"Done," said Jake. "But if none of us three finishes first, the bet is off. OK?"

"Fair enough," said Tommy.

"Fair enough," said Pepe.

Jake added, "We’d better work our way over toward the starting gate. Post time is in three minutes."

When they returned to front of the grandstand and approached the starting gate, Tommy said, "Hey, look at the tote board, Jake! We’re both even money in this race."

"Yeah—and Pepe is three to one. The fourth choice is six to one."

"Well, the race is run on the track and not the tote board," said Pepe.

In a few moments the horses were circling behind the starting gate, and the head gate man gave the word to load up, left to right. Jake and Tommy’s horses were posted into the number 5 and 6 positions, respectively, next to each other. Pepe’s horse was loaded into post 7. As he steadied his mount in the gate, Tommy looked around at the other horses and jockeys in the starting gate and said, "Jake, other than Pepe’s mount, I don’t see anything except second rate nags. I don’t even understand why our horses’ owners put these horses in this race. I don’t think they’ll get a good workout."

"We’ll see," said Jake.

Tommy pulled his goggles down over his eyes and said, "You’re a worry wart, Jake, old pal. It’s easy money—ten percent of the horses’ earnings—enjoy the ride, Jake."

The starting gate crew got the horses settled, and the gate bell rang loudly. The starting gates flung open with a cacophonous crash. As expected, Tommy and Jake’s horses took the early lead and the two experienced jockeys worked their horses close to the rail to save ground. By the time they reached the first turn, they had a two-link lead over Pepe’s horse, now running third. Tommy pulled up even with Jake and as their horses ran stride for stride, he said, "A piece of cake! Didn’t’ I tell you Jake?"

Just then a pilot car with long barricade wings normally used for lining up horses in harness races pulled out of a gap in the outside rail near the first turn, onto the track, fifty yards ahead of Jake and Tommy. "What the hell is this?" asked Tommy.

"It’s part of the new handicapping system I told you about. We have to pull up to the barricade and hold our horses there until the other ones catch up."

"That’s insanity," said Tommy.

When all horses were once again even, the pilot car folded the barricade wings and accelerated. As Tommy had predicted, his and Jake’s horses quickly went to the front of the field again. Pepe regained third position, hugging the rail.

"Well, crazy it is," said Tommy, "But it still won’t keep the best horses from winning."

"We’ll see," said Jake.

As they headed down the backstretch, the jockeys clucked their horses onward into the homestretch. After the final turn, another pilot car with a barricade pulled out into the center of the track and spread the wings of the barricade, forcing the leaders to check. "Incredible!" shouted Tommy to Jake as they steadied their horses behind the barricade. "We’re only an eighth of a mile from the finish line and they’re holding us up again. We can still win, though."

“Que diablos!” shouted Pepe as he slowed his horse to the speed of the pilot car.

Soon, all the horses were again racing evenly behind the barricade. Jake, Tommy and Pepe again waited anxiously for the mobile barricade to fold again so that they could accelerate. However, this time the barricade wings did not fold up. In fact, the pilot vehicle slowed more, continuing to hold all horses to a slower pace so that the slowest could stay even and abreast behind the barricade.

The barricade stayed down and all horses crossed the finish line evenly. All ten horses went to the winner’s circle and had their photos taken. The purse was divided evenly among the ten horses. The tote board showed that all bettors’ tickets would return the amount of money the bettors had paid for the ticket, plus the minimum payout of five cents on the dollar.

Irate fans fell into line at the cashiers’ counters, shouting, murmuring and protesting. The line of bettors at an outside bettor’s window stretched all the way back to the rail guarding the scales station where Pepe stood in line, holding his saddle for the end-of-race weigh-in. The line at the pay window was about three times as long as it would have ordinarily been. He listened to the fans’ strident complaints. Unlike all races before, every bettor in this race was a "winner," but their pari-mutuel payoff profit was a dismal dime. "How long do we have to put up with this horse manure?" asked a lanky young man standing on the opposite side of the rail from Pepe, waiting to cash his ticket.

A white-haired, elderly man behind him, wearing a beat-up, gray fedora hat and eyeglasses with thick lens, said, "It looks like it’s here to stay. It worked as they planned."

"It did?" said the young man. "Why in Hell would they plan such a finish?"

"It’s the Government’s idea."

"The Government’s?"

"That’s right. A civic organization complained to Congress that some handicappers are far more experienced and better at reading and interpreting the Daily Racing Form. They claimed that the handicapping-challenged lose more money than their better-educated and more experienced counterparts. So Congress introduced the new racing regulations and the President agreed that it was in line with his personal philosophy about equal opportunity. This new handicapping system is called the No Horse Left Behind policy."

Back in the jockey’s locker room, Jake and Tommy joined the other jockeys’ chorus of complaints.

Pepe pulled off his shirt and slammed it against a wall. He grumbled, "Man, I’m going back to ride in Mexico again."

Jake said, "That sounds cool, Pepe. Maybe I’ll join you."

In a few moments the track announcer blared that all the rest of the races on the card had been canceled because all the bettors had left the track.

Pepe sat down on a bench, pulled off a riding boot, and as if to add a punctuation mark to his feelings, banged the heel against the floor. "Man, I want to be where they have winners—and losers. Ya can’t have winners if you don’t have losers."

* * *


Pepe was awakened with a shaking from fellow jockey, Jake Morrow. "Hey Pepe, wake up! It’s time to report to the paddock!"

Groggily, Pepe sat up on the bench, rubbing his eyes. He looked up at Jake who carried his whip under his armpit while adjusting a pair of goggles on his helmet. Grinning broadly, Jake asked, "Hey Pepe, what the hell were you dreamin’ about?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were talkin’ in your sleep."

Buttoning his silks, Pepe warily asked, "What did I say?"

"It was weird," said Jake, still laughing. "You were muttering and saying a lot of things. You blurted out something that sounded like, ‘We need losers so we can have winners!’”

The End

Obama Sells Off America

While Barack Obama’s latest campaign ad attacks on Governor Romney try to convince America that Romney’s foreign investments are “the problem,” wise Americans would rather see our successful entrepreneurs buying up foreign countries, than see foreign countries buying up the U.S. to fund Obama’s humongous welfare programs. Romney’s foreign investments are only a nibble, considering how much American real estate and industry Obama has recently sold off to China and other foreign countries.

"Secretary Clinton may not have pledged American homes to China, but the Obama administration may be willing to grant a financial guarantee as an incentive for China to convert U.S. debt into Chinese direct equity investment to establish Chinese ownership in U.S. successful corporations and potentially profitable infrastructure projects," Corsi wrote. "The Obama administration is now willing to put the U.S. up for sale to China to induce China to keep financing U.S. government deficit spending…

“Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, said the plan to convert Chinese debt to equity investments in the United States could easily add another $1 trillion to outstanding Obama administration guarantees issued in the current economic crisis.”

http://www.goofigure.com/UserGoofigureDetail.asp?gooID=6191


http://www.wmtw.com/news/politics/Obama-camp-blasts-Romney-s-foreign-accounts/-/8791900/15393794/-/5bqo8nz/-/index.html#ixzz21iOyMhsC

The Self Publisher

(This essay was once the Introduction to my web page when I was advertising my own books.)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who in my opinion is America's most important philosopher, once said in his Essays: First Series,”

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Some of the more daunting challenges of self-publishing are that you have to be your own writer, editor, typesetter and publisher. In addition, to creating literary works, the self-publisher is burdened by publicity, marketing and bookkeeping. I am fortunate to have a wife who helps me in some of these chores.

Prior to POD publishing, making self-publishing affordable for almost anyone, I figured that none of my work would ever get beyond creative writing classes--where, back in the 1970s we classmates used to thrill one another with our politically incorrect efforts, innocently oblivious to the conformity nightmare with which most well-published writers have to contend. Reading and writing unedited stories by those who wear their hearts on their sleeves is as thrilling as reading a novel by Gogol (who invented wearing the heart on the writer's sleeve--he played a part in inspiring the current movie, Namesake, for which I recently wrote a review). Self-publishing, as well as creative writing classes, are exhilarating experiences that the general public can share only by digging beneath the obfuscation of the giant media and corporations that want to guide your reading habits (and maybe even your political thought processes).

Although I do not know anyone who writes racist or bigoted material, many writers are suppressed and constricted to narrow scopes of writing delineated by the "requirements" of each publisher. They all fear that they might offend some minority or ethnic group. This phenomenon was thematic in the movie, Amadeus, when the Austrian Holy Roman emperor, Joseph II, censored some of Mozart's best operas for fear of offending some of the multitudinous minority groups in the empire. Since I discovered POD publishing, I do not submit manuscripts to the "big" publishers anymore, but with the few that I did, years ago, I noticed that a common word used in rejection notices is that a work does not "fit" the needs of the publisher. While I was still in college I submitted to a literary agent a short, non-fiction story about a certain smuggling place along the border and described some of the clever methods used by smugglers of illegal aliens. The agent did not think he could sell the item, unless it was made a "human interest" story that told the story from the viewpoint of the illegal aliens. He indicated that he thought that I could not do that because I was "on the wrong side of the fence." That was in the early 1970s, and, to prove him wrong, I immediately sat down and wrote a 400-page novel told from the viewpoint of two illegal aliens. Although I sent a copy to the Library of Congress and registered it, I never published it. Nowadays, I would be disappointed if told I “fit” somewhere because of the connotation of conformity. Conformists can only write what’s been written before, but with just enough re-wording to keep them, and their publishers, from getting sued for plagiarism.

The above experience was my first exposure to the social thought that a story about smuggling, as told by an immigration officer, did not "fit" anywhere in the psyche of the American mind. I remember a lesson in creative writing where my instructor, Francis Fugate, author of Viewpoint: Key to Fiction Writing lectured the class on the trick to developing a sympathetic character, one the reader can identify with, or one the reader can become concerned about. He posed the image of an imaginary fistfight between himself and another professor. When you see a fight, what is the first reaction of the observer? I saw what he was getting at, for Americans always quickly side with the one they consider the underdog. Rooting for the underdog is a trait of nearly every American—unless he is mentally unbalanced, a sadist, or otherwise neurotic. However, in arguendo, I submit that Americans are often confused as to who the “underdog” really is.

As a career immigration officer, there is no way that I can consider an illegal alien an “underdog." The American social "deck" is stacked in his/her favor from apprehension, though the justice system to the rewards he/she gets for violating our immigration laws, as contrasted with the legal immigrants who abide by the rules and patiently await their turn for an immigrant visa. All nations have quotas on immigrants; if they didn't they could no longer have a national identity or patriotic citizens. The ancient Romans were the first to learn that unchecked immigration (they called it an invasion of barbarians) will lead to the destruction of a republic, or an empire. America is far from ready to accept the fact that the immigration officer is the real underdog in the battle to protect our borders. If his opponent were simply the illegal alien, his job would be easy; but the illegal alien is in alliance with every liberal, left-wing activist, unscrupulous employer of illegal aliens in the country, and probably most Congressmen, and certainly with President Obama. Consequently, the main battle I fought in my INS career was with the bureaucracy, which I consider abjectly corrupt, and battling that collective "villain" almost ruined my life. I was, and perhaps still am, unequivocally the underdog in that battle, but that is another story. My own advocacy had little impact; it was not until 9-11-01 that illegal immigration was first seen as a problem in this country. Even now, the public and the established government think the military, not immigration law enforcement, is the solution. The problem will never be solved until we have a national identity document, then we will never have to question the credentials of another worker—not even the President’s credentials.

Nowhere in the annals of American history have there been more lies, myths and anti-government propaganda promulgated by special interest groups than in the area of illegal immigration. Debunking them by proving that illegal aliens do not pay more into the economy than they take out in services is always ignored by the mainstream media. It does no good to illustrate how they insidiously break down our national, cultural values, our character and, indeed, our national fabric. Even if they did pay into the system more (in revenue) than they take out, they are still illegal, and tolerating them goes against the grain our cultural belief in the rule of law. However, the only profit of exploiting illegal aliens goes into the pockets of their unscrupulous employers. It is my belief, and I often illustrate, that continual toleration of illegal immigration will lead to anarchy and national chaos. I am not speaking of Hispanic Americans; in fact, I believe they are more the victim of illegal immigration than the rest of the population, and I value them as citizens; in fact, my wife is one. There are some employers who exploit illegal aliens that do not want to hire any Hispanic unless he/she is in the country illegally (only illegal aliens “fit” their agenda).

Now, back to the subject of writing, for which I also have a passion.

Although I do not depend on it for a living, I consider myself a professional writer, and I can write about any subject and assume any viewpoint. My most recent novel is a historical biography of Paula Maxwell, the girl whom Billy the Kid wanted to marry.

Political correctness in editing and publishing is, by no means, new. In fact it was once much worse, but we can revert to those times if we are not careful. One of the best novels ever written, Cervantes' Don Quixote, (which some claim is the first novel) had to be read by an official "censor" before publication. You can read Cervantes' censor's remarks in the middle pages of the unabridged versions. In those days of the Inquisition, writers had to walk a fine line, but Cervantes somehow managed to publish this story, which is a satire on the stagnation of classic literature--and, fortunately, he got it past the official censor. He did it by creating a pathetic, yet congenial, character that was a product of the Inquisition and State censorship, a character too ignorant to recognize the fish bowl existence of writers in the late Sixteenth Century. His protagonist, Don Quixote, a mentally unbalanced and delusional old man, revives his personal concept of the erstwhile knight errant who, "in days of old, when knights were bold," demonstrates and lives out his fascination with the old, stagnated heroic tales of medieval times, and makes a futile effort to reconcile his current experiences with those of the past. Don Quixote frequently quotes from such archaic sources as The Song Of Rolande. Cervantes does not tell us his protagonist has a brilliant, but warped mind; he leaves it to the reader to figure that out. Contemporary readers at the time that Don Quixote was published were aware that some two hundred years thence the armored knight and steed were made obsolete by the invention of gunpowder and the cannon. Before reading a historical novel, I recommend that the reader read the introduction and any critiques that are available. This will not destroy the story, for they are written discreetly. When the protagonist is seriously delusional, the reader is taken along for a ride like someone trying to make sense of a narration by Cantinflas, or one who, for a while, is sympathetic with Nabokov's Humberto Humberto. Vladimir Nabokov had a passion for “playing” with the reader, and that is one reason his work is mentally challenging. It might be said that a good novelist exploits the same human frailties that a psychopath, a slight of hand artist, or even a Ponzi scheme operator might.

The novelist develops characters who, if they were “normal,” would not make a good story. My story, That Zorro Guy, found in the “short story” index of this web site, is an example. Another example, which is worthy of only anecdotal treatment, came at a time when, as an INS criminal investigator, I was sent to Los Angeles' Sybil Brand female detention center to institute deportation proceedings against an Egyptian female named "Medusa Salaam." I departed headquarters wondering how any mother could name a child "Medusa," and after listening to her lies and dissembling efforts for a short time, I determined she was a black prostitute from East Texas. When I disappointed her by telling her I could not deport her to Egypt, she wanted to know if I could just put her on the next INS bus-lift to Tijuana! I began to suspect that she had a mean pimp she wanted to get rid of—maybe the one who was responsible for assigning her the street name, Medusa. I went back to the front office to check out before leaving the center and told them that the woman I had interviewed was a U.S. citizen (and therefore an LAPD, not INS, problem). The young lady psychologist who had interviewed her for sanity refused to admit she'd been been duped; to her, the young woman was still Egyptian, Medusa Salaam, not Ruby Mae Smith of Carthage, Texas! Psychologists would not understand the subtle ways that immigration officers have at getting to the truth with frauds. Nor can hardly anyone believe that immigration officers, not infrequently, encounter citizens who lie about being illegal aliens; but of course not as many as they encounter who falsely claim to be U.S. citizens. When I encountered a person I suspected of being a false claimer to illegal alienage, I often use what I called the qui vive approach to see if the person is really a loyal citizen of the country she claims. This approach is often necessary when, for example, a Latino from South America claims to be a Puerto Rican to avoid deportation. Used in tandem with the shibboleth (mispronunciation of a word common to a nationality that the speaker claims to be a member of), the qui vive is very effective. Since all illegal aliens are escorted to their countries’ consuls for an interview before being deported, they are not going to get past a consular officer who must issue them a provisional passport to re-enter their country. Nevertheless, much time (and embarrassment) is saved—for immigration immigration officers and consular officials alike—if the arresting officers can easily detect these frauds who are naïve enough to think they can scam the immigration authorities and get free transportation for a vacation in some foreign country.

One thing the above anecdote illustrates is that anyone can be a pretty good story-teller, and even an illiterate prostitute can do it, if they encounter a gullible listener. When it comes to fiction, having a reader, or a listener who is willing to suspend disbelief is essential, and what the skilled writer does is induce that willingness into the reader before he/she loses interest. It is probably the skill most emphasized in creative writing classes.

Some of Mark Twain's best satire has come to light only in recent years as his old manuscripts that were rejected by editors (when he was not self-publishing) have recently been published. A good example is his short story, The War Prayer, which can be viewed in its entirety (about 500 words, I'd guess) on several web sites by merely typing in Mark Twain's The War Prayer in your browser window. That story might be described as an expose' of religious fundamentalism and how the Old Testament scripture can be played against the New Testament to justify just about anything. Even today, those who oppose wars, even if only for economic reasons, like presidential candidate, Ron Paul, are called names (the old uninvited speaker at a war rally held at the church in Twain’s short story was later called a “lunatic” because, as one observer said, “…nothing he said made any sense…”).

In some ways, since Twain, and perhaps even since Cervantes, social conventions have changed for the better, but there is much pressure for more censorship from certain groups, particularly the fundamentalist religious groups that have in recent years begun to retrogress back toward where we were in the days of the Inquisition. Some, such as Rick Santorum, demand teaching “intelligent design” in “science” classes.

Some writers do not understand the concept of viewpoint and the many ways in which it is applied. I was fortunate to have the late Francis Fugate as my mentor in creative writing classes. He authored what I consider the best book ever on the subject of viewpoint, Viewpoint: Key to Fiction Writing, which we used in his class. Viewpoint goes much deeper than grammatical constructions; it is a necessary component of consistent characterization and depicting personality traits. He once told of receiving a phone call after midnight, and when he answered, he could hear a juke box and billiard balls clicking. In a drunken slur, a man asked, “This Fugate? “ Fugate responded, “Yes.” Then, without introduction or qualification, the caller asked, “Which is it, to who, or to whom?” Even drunks may argue about grammatical conventions, but viewpoint is a subject that goes much deeper. Some writers cannot avoid the colloquial even when narrating a novel using the the third person viewpoint. This is why any novelist narrating from any viewpoint, other than the first person, must have a basic knowledge of grammatical conventions, if he wants to be published. Francis Fugate once said that probably more manuscripts are rejected for “getting out of viewpoint” than for any other reason. Every character in a story has a different viewpoint, and their mode of speech in dialogue makes up part of their character traits.

I once thought that self-publishing was demeaning to a true artist's skills until I learned that these great authors self-published:

William Blake, Robbie Burns. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Samuel (Mark Twain) Clemens, Alexander Dumas, Zane Grey, James Joyce, Rudyard Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, Edgar Allen Poe, George Bernard Shaw, Henry David Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood, Tom Clancy, Stephen Crane, Wayne Dyer, Carl Sandburg....

That's company any writer can be proud to be a part of. I hope that other self-published writers will take heart. Understandably, self-published authors are scorned by the large, corporate book publishers, but they are not as oblivious as they might pretend to be. More and more good quality publishing is coming into print by self-publishers who do not want to undergo the humility of rejection and/or extensive editing for political correctness. If we are not getting their patronage, we are at least getting their attention.

(The above list of famous, self-published authors was compiled by the Trafford Publishing Company.)