Author: kingsjester

64 year old Christian Conservative husband, father, and grandfather who has been writing since April 2010.

Iran: Those Who Do Not Learn From History…

On By kingsjesterIn Politics11 Comments

Since the ouster of the Shah, Iran has been a thorn in the side of the Free World, and, especially, the United States of America.

Are you old enough to remember the Hostage Crisis? If not, here is a summary, courtesy of u-s-history.com:

 On November 4, 1979, an angry mob of some 300 to 500 “students” who called themselves “Imam’s Disciples,” laid siege to the American Embassy in Teheran, Iran, to capture and hold hostage 66 U.S. citizens and diplomats. Although women and African-Americans were released a short time later, 51 hostages remained imprisoned for 444 days with another individual released because of illness midway through the ordeal.

…Upon the death of the shah in July [1980] (which neutralized one demand) and the Iraqi invasion of Iran in September (necessitating weapons acquisition), Iran became more amenable to reopening negotiations for the hostages’ release.

In the late stages of the presidential race with Ronald Reagan, Carter, given those new parameters, might have been able to bargain with the Iranians, which might have clinched the election for him. The 11th-hour heroics were dubbed an “October Surprise”* by the Reagan camp — something they did not want to see happen.

Allegations surfaced that William Casey, director of the Reagan campaign, and some CIA operatives, secretly met with Iranian officials in Europe to arrange for the hostages’ release, but not until after the election. If true, some observers aver, dealing with a hostile foreign government to achieve a domestic administration’s defeat would have been grounds for charges of treason.

Reagan won the election, partly because of the failure of the Carter administration to bring the hostages home. Within minutes of Reagan’s inauguration, the hostages were released.

Unfortunately, these same barbarians now have new “toys” to threaten us with.

USNews.com has the story:

Iran has the ability to fire missiles at U.S. targets in the Middle East and “temporarily” close a key sea transit route, a senior intelligence official said Thursday. Tehran has a missile arsenal capable of reaching “targets throughout the region and into Eastern Europe,” Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, Defense Intelligence Agency director, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Iran has … threatened to launch missiles against the United States and our allies in the region in response to an attack” on its nuclear facilities or other targets, he said. What’s more, Iran “could also employ its terrorist surrogates worldwide,” Burgess said. He also noted that “Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz,” the key sea lane used to move oil and other goods to destinations around the globe. The U.S. intelligence community believes Iran “is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict or launch a preemptive attack,” Burgess told the panel.

The Leader of Israel has a better grasp of this dangerous situation than the Obama Administration does.  Ynetnews.com reports that

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Cypriot President Dimitris Christofias signed a search and rescue agreement on Thursday. According to the agreement, in the event of a disaster Israeli aircraft will be authorized to enter Cyprus’ airspace, and vice versa. A similar agreement between the Jewish state and Turkey was revoked recently in light of heightened tensions between the countries. While in Nicosia, Netanyahu also addressed the Iranian nuclear threat, saying the sanctions imposed by the international community on the Islamic Republic “are not working.” Iran is the most irresponsible force in the world, he said, claiming the sactions imposed on the Islamic Republic have not had an effect so far. According to Netanyahu, the regime in Tehran violates every resolution and has no respect for international norms. He added that Iran’s race towards nuclear weapons should concern the US and every other country. Nuclear arms in the hands of the Iranian regime is a cause for great concern to the US and Israel, he said.

The U.S. Senate is concerned, as Freebeacon.com reports:

A bipartisan slate of senators announced this afternoon they would reject “any United States policy that would rely on efforts to contain a nuclear weapons-capable Iran.” Drawing a clear line in the sand, the senators – among them Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) – demanded that President Obama reject “any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat,” according to a new Senate resolution set to be unveiled later today. The resolution “warns that time is limited to prevent the Iranian government from acquiring a nuclear weapon” and demands that the hostile regime immediately suspend all uranium enrichment activities. Most noteworthy, perhaps, is the resolution’s thorough accounting of the Iranian regime’s hostile behavior. It details, for example, Iran’s connections to terror groups and its various efforts to harm U.S. interests across the Middle East. “Iran has provided weapons, training, funding, and direction to terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Shiite militias in Iraq that are responsible for the murders of hundreds of American forces and innocent civilians,” the resolution declares. It states unequivocally that Iran and nuclear weapons are simply anathema. “If Iran were successful in acquiring a nuclear weapon capability, it would likely spur other countries in the region to consider developing their own nuclear weapons capabilities,” it reads. Earlier in the week, opponents of tough action towards Iran appeared almost gleeful over reports that lawmakers were having trouble attracting Democrats to the resolution.

Evidently, these Senators opposing tough action, learned nothing from the Hostage Crisis.

Those who do not learn from history…are doomed to repeat it.  

The War Against Christianity: Battleground Your Child’s School

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics4 Comments

According to a study done by The Pew Forum on Public and Religious Life, completed in January of 2011, and reported in USA Today, the number of Muslims in American will almost double by the year 2030, growing from a mere 1 % of our population to 1.7%.

However, if you read the articles about Muslims in the Main Stream Media, and all the hubbub concerning the poorly received series on TLC, All-American Muslim, an average American would think that they were a vibrant, rapidly growing, sizable minority here in America.

Liberals are bound and determined to push Islam down our American Christian Conservative throats…by indoctrinating our children:

Check out this story from foxnews.com:

A Colorado high school student says he quit the school choir after an Islamic song containing the lyric “there is no truth except Allah” made it into the repertoire.

James Harper, a senior at Grand Junction High School in Grand Junction, put his objection to singing “Zikr,” a song written by Indian composer A.R. Rahman, in an email to Mesa County School District 51 officials. When the school stood by choir director Marcia Wieland’s selection, Harper said, he quit.

“I don’t want to come across as a bigot or a racist, but I really don’t feel it is appropriate for students in a public high school to be singing an Islamic worship song,” Harper told KREX-TV. “This is worshipping another God, and even worshipping another prophet … I think there would be a lot of outrage if we made a Muslim choir say Jesus Christ is the only truth.”

But district spokesman Jeff Kirtland defended the decision to include the song.

“Choral music is often devoted to religious themes. … This is not a case where the school is endorsing or promoting any particular religion or other non-educational agenda. The song was chosen because its rhythms and other qualities would provide an opportunity to exhibit the musical talent and skills of the group in competition, not because of its religious message or lyrics,” Kirtland told FoxNews.com in an email while noting that the choir “is a voluntary, after-school activity.”

“Students are not required to participate, and receive no academic credit for doing so,” he said.

At an upcoming concert, the choir is scheduled to sing an Irish folk song and an Christian song titled “Prayer of the Children,” in addition to the song by Rahman.

“The teacher consulted with students and asked each of them to review an online performance of the selection with their parents before making the decision to perform the piece,” Kirtland said, and members who object to the religious content of musical selections aren’t required to sing them.

Rahman, who has sold hundreds of millions of records and is well-known in his homeland, has said the song is not intended for a worship ceremony. He told FoxNews.com in a written statement that the song, composed for the move “Bose, the Forgotten Hero,” is about “self-healing and spirituality.”

“It is unfortunate that the student in Colorado misinterpreted the intention of the song,” Rahman said. “I have long celebrated the commonalities of humanity and try to share and receive things in this way. While I respect his decision for opting out, this incident is an example of why we need further cultural education through music.”

The state of Florida is not immune from the Liberals’ plans, either.  Again, Fox News reports:

Parents in Tampa are the latest to protest school officials inviting a controversial Muslim civil liberties advocacy group to speak to students.

Dozens of people showed up at a Hillsborough County school board meeting Tuesday night to complain that a member of Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, spoke to history students at Steinbrenner High School last fall. They cited the group’s alleged ties to terrorist group Hamas. The group, which purports to promote diversity and tolerance of the religion, has met a similar reception in Texas and Georgia in recent years.

“We do not have a problem with Islamic groups speaking with students, but we do have an issue with a group that has ties to terrorism speaking,” Randall McDaniels, head of the Jacksonville Chapter of ACT for America, one of the groups actively seeking to stop CAIR members from speaking to students in public schools, told FoxNews.com

CAIR spokesman Corey Saylor dismissed the criticism as “fear-mongering.” Hassan Shibly, the Florida CAIR member who spoke to the students, said the parents are misguided.

“This hatred and animosity only shows the importance of reaching out to the community,” he said, “It’s insulting to the school and the students to think that one person can influence their beliefs. It’s misleading.”

The group, the nation’s largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization, also has come under criticism for, among other reasons, being named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terror financing case involving the Holy Land Foundation.

Michael Rubin, a resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on the Middle East and terrorism, said concerns about CAIR are not unfounded.

“They have been co-conspirators in a terrorism finance trial and seek to stymie debate rather than safeguard it,” Rubin said. “Almost every day, jihadists on religious Internet forums belie CAIR’s claim that religion has nothing to do with terrorism. Ultimately, there is a battle for interpretation going on inside the world of Islam, and rather than seek to win that debate for the moderates and proponents of tolerance, CAIR acts as the jihadists’ offensive linesmen.”

Parents in the Houston-area town of Friendswood objected to a presentation CAIR made to junior high students in 2008, sparking a furor that led to the principal’s resignation. In 2010, parents in Gwenett County, Ga., forced the school system to disinvite CAIR from holding classroom presentations.

Gosh.  The Liberals’ plans for the Islamic indoctrination of our Schoolchildren, in the name of diversity, are not going so well.  

These Liberal school administrations found out, as President Obama has, facing a backlash over his arrogant plan to force Catholic Hospitals to dispense birth control and the morning after pill, that this country was founded on a system of Judeo-Christian beliefs, and 78% of our citizens (according to gallup.com) still proudly proclaim their Christian Heritage…and they’re not about to give it up.

Obama to Cut National Defense to 1950 Level

On By kingsjesterIn Politics3 Comments

When he assumed office, President Ronald Reagan faced the daunting task of rebuilding our National Defense, decimated by his ineffectual predecessor, Jimmy Carter.

Ronald Reagan, as he always did, went directly to the American people, in a televised speech given on the night of March 23, 1983.

Presidentialrhetoric.com provides the transcript:

…The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend against aggression – to preserve freedom and peace.

Since the dawn of the atomic age, we’ve sought to reduce the risk of war by maintaining a strong deterrent and by seeking genuine arms control. “Deterrence” means simply this: making sure any adversary who thinks about attacking the United States, or our allies, or our vital interests, concludes that the risks to him outweigh any potential gains. Once he understands that, he won’t attack. We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression. This strategy of deterrence has not changed. It still works. But what it takes to maintain deterrence has changed. It took one kind of military force to deter an attack when we had far more nuclear weapons than any other power; it takes another kind now that the Soviets, for example, have enough accurate and powerful nuclear weapons to destroy virtually all of our missiles on the ground. Now, this is not to say that the Soviet Union is planning to make war on us. Nor do I believe a war is inevitable – quite the contrary. But what must be recognized is that our security is based on being prepared to meet all threats.

There was a time when we depended on coastal forts and artillery batteries, because, with the weaponry of that day, any attack would have had to come by sea. Well, this is a different world, and our defenses must be based on recognition and awareness of the weaponry possessed by other nations in the nuclear age. We can’t afford to believe that we will never be threatened. There have been two world wars in my lifetime. We didn’t start them and, indeed, did everything we could to avoid being drawn into them. But we were ill-prepared for both. Had we been better prepared, peace might have been preserved.

For 20 years the Soviet Union has been accumulating enormous military might. They didn’t stop when their forces exceeded all requirements of a legitimate defensive capability. And they haven’t stopped now. During the past decade and a half, the Soviets have built up a massive arsenal of new strategic nuclear weapons- weapons that can strike directly at the United States.

…This is why I’m speaking to you tonight – to urge you to tell your Senators and Congressmen that you know we must continue to restore our military strength. If we stop in midstream, we will send a signal of decline, of lessened will, to friends and adversaries alike. Free people must voluntarily, through open debate and democratic means, meet the challenge that totalitarians pose by compulsion. It’s up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.

President Reagan coined a very famous, but simple, phrase describing his Foreign Policy:  

Trust, but Verify.

Evidently,  our 44th president and his Administrative Staff only believe in the first half of that phrase.

LATimes.com reports:

President Obama greeted the Chinese heir apparent in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning, a venue where the U.S. president usually receives only the nation’s closest friends.

But even as the two countries eye one another warily, the Obama administration wants to keep its options open with Vice President Xi Jinping as he prepares to take his place as president next year.

In a joint appearance before their meeting, Obama told reporters that the U.S. relationship with China is based on “mutual interest and mutual respect,” and that such a relationship is in the interests of the rest of the world, too.

The United States welcomes China’s “peaceful rise,” Obama said, which he said has the power to “help to bring stability and prosperity to the world.”

As Al Jolson once said:

Wait a minute…wait a minute…you ain’t seen nothing yet!

According to the Associated Press :

The Obama administration is weighing options for sharp new cuts to the U.S. nuclear force, including a reduction of up to 80 percent in the number of deployed weapons, The Associated Press has learned.

Even the most modest option now under consideration would be an historic and politically bold disarmament step in a presidential election year, although the plan is in line with President Barack Obama’s 2009 pledge to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons.

No final decision has been made, but the administration is considering at least three options for lower total numbers of deployed strategic nuclear weapons cutting to: 1,000 to 1,100; 700 to 800, and 300 to 400, according to a former government official and a congressional staffer. Both spoke on condition of anonymity in order to reveal internal administration deliberations.

The potential cuts would be from a current treaty limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.

A level of 300 deployed strategic nuclear weapons would take the U.S. back to levels not seen since 1950 when the nation was ramping up production in an arms race with the Soviet Union. The U.S. numbers peaked at above 12,000 in the late 1980s and first dropped below 5,000 in 2003.

Obama has often cited his desire to seek lower levels of nuclear weapons, but specific options for a further round of cuts had been kept under wraps until the AP learned of the three options now on the table.

A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, Tommy Vietor, said Tuesday that the options developed by the Pentagon have not yet been presented to Obama.

All you Americans in your 50s, like me, and older…remember the old “Duck and Cover” films we watched in school?

Well, those things we learned from those films, won’t help now.

I suggest prayer.

Smart Power? $4 Per Gallon Gas, Bankrolling Barbarians, and Ignoring Our Friends

On By kingsjesterIn Politics7 Comments

Tonight, in celebration of Valentine’s Day, a lot of American couples will be using their cars to go out to dinner.

Enjoy going out while you can still afford to, Americans.

ABC.go.com has the story:

Gasoline prices could soon hit $4 a gallon, a threshold they haven’t flirted with since last spring.

The average price paid by U.S. drivers for a gallon of regular now stands at $3.52, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which released its latest figures this afternoon. That price represents an increase of 0.04 percent from a week ago and 0.38 percent from a year ago.

Experts expect prices to spike another 60 cents or more, with the $4 mark being touched—or exceeded—sometime this summer, probably by Memorial Day weekend, the peak of the summer driving season. The last time the U.S. saw $4 gasoline was back in the summer of 2008.

“I think it’s going to be a chaotic spring,” says Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service. He expects average prices to peak at $4.05, though he and other industry trackers say prices could be sharply higher in some markets.

Historically, $4 a gallon has been the upper limit of what consumers have been willing to pay. Last April, national prices peaked at about $3.98 a gallon before receding. “It’s going to be tough to sustain that level,” thinks Brian Milne of energy tracker Televent DTN. “People will drive less.”

Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston, says where prices will go long-term is anybody’s guess. He has been following gas prices one way or another for more than 30 years. He distinguishes between those forces affecting prices that are predictable, and others that are not.

Chief among the unknowns is war in the Middle East–or if not war, increased tensions. It’s such worries, he says, that are most responsible now for the run up in prices at the pump. Also boosting prices is the higher seasonal demand that comes with summer vacations, plus a federally mandated switch from winter gas formulations to costlier ones for summer. The summer ones, designed to reduce emissions, require further refining steps.

Where could gas be by year’s end? “It depends if the Middle East blows up in a war or not,” says Lipow. “That’s really the big headline out there: Whether or not geopolitical events disrupt supply. We see that affect already.”

We all know that the Middle East is a powderkeg.  Revolution is in the air, and all of the secular despots that America was used to dealing with, are being replaced by Muslim despots, who believe that we are all infidels, and who rather kill us than look at us.

So…what is our president, the Leader of the Free World doing?  Is he negotiating with Ali Baba and his forty thieves in order to drive our oil prices down, thereby stimulating our stagnant economy?

Nope.  This yutz wants to bankroll the barbarians.

Reuters.com reports:

The White House announced plans on Monday to help countries swept by “Arab Spring” revolutions with more than $800 million in economic aid, while maintaining U.S. military assistance to Egypt despite a crisis triggered by an Egyptian crackdown on U.S. democracy activists.

In a year marked by fierce debate over U.S. budget deficits, President Barack Obama sought to maintain the core of U.S. spending on overseas aid and development while squeezing savings out of existing programs and scaling back proposals to build new embassies and hire more diplomats.

In his annual budget message to Congress, Obama asked that military aid to Egypt be kept at the level of recent years – $1.3 billion – and sought $250 million in regular economic aid for the country as it makes its shaky transition away from autocratic rule following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak last year.

The proposals are part of Obama’s budget request for fiscal year 2013, which begins Oct. 1. His requests need the approval of Congress. Some lawmakers have urged cuts to overseas spending to address U.S. budget shortfalls and are particularly angry at Egypt.

Obama proposed $51.6 billion in funding for the U.S. State Department and foreign aid overall, when $8.2 billion in assistance to war zones is included.

The White House sought a 1.6 percent increase in the State Department’s budget, excluding spending for Iraq and Afghanistan, which was tallied up separately.

Most of the new economic aid for the Arab Spring countries – $770 million – would go to a new “Middle East and North Africa Incentive Fund,” the president said in his budget plan.

Officials said the bulk of this would be new money, and would be spent on initiatives to support long-term economic, political, and trade reforms for countries in transition such as Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen.

“We’re in a new world. The Arab Spring has come,” said Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chief budget official.

“We need to make sure we have the tools and flexibility in which to fund these initiatives. … The world is evolving as we see it, and we felt it was important to have a pool of money.”Obama continued the practice of putting proposed foreign assistance for war zones in a separate account. This account, known as the “Overseas Contingency Operations,” includes $8.2 billion for the State Department and foreign aid.

It includes $3.3 billion for Afghanistan, $1 billion for Pakistan, and $4 billion for Iraq, where U.S. troops have left the country but the State Department has picked up some of their functions such as police training.

Overall funding for Iraq declined about 10 percent from the 2012 fiscal year to $4.8 billion.

Assistance for Israel was steady at around $3.1 billion.

Let me try to wrap my head around this.  While Americans face the propect of $4 per gallon gas, the Obama Administration’s  Middle East Policy is to reward the people jacking around with the gas prices, a bunch of murderous barbarians, and ignore our greatest ally?

And they call this Smart Power?

Whitney: A Musical Journey Ended, Much Too Soon

On By kingsjesterIn Entertainment3 Comments

I love music.  Good music.  Growing up with a father who sang in the church choir and two sisters who took years of piano lessons, I was raised to the sound of hymns from the Cokesbury Hymnbook being sung to me, while my Daddy made my breakfast and the sound of my sisters playing the piano in the living room at night.

As I got older, I remember listening to Rick Dees and Ron Jordan on WMPS 680 AM in Memphis, Tennessee, hearing songs such as “The Night Chicago Died”  and “Hold On, I’m Coming.”

Then came the glorious afternoon in 1974: my step-sister had an extra ticket for the top row of the Mid-South Coliseum, where we got to see The King himself –  Elvis Presley –  in front of a hometown crowd.  He wore a blue jumpsuit and had not yet begun to gain weight or diminish in talent. He was awesome.

Among the back-up singers performing with The King that afternoon was a trio of beautiful Black ladies named the Sweet Inspirations.  Their voices were amazing.  For a shining example of their work, I suggest you listen to one of Elvis’ greatest hits, “In the Ghetto,” written by Mac Davis.

The Sweet Inspirations were founded by Cissy Houston, who now faces the horrible reality of out-living her daughter.

Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music’s queen until her majestic voice was ravaged by drug use and her regal image was ruined by erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, died Saturday. She was 48.

Beverly Hills police Lt. Mark Rosen said Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. in her room on the fourth floor of the Beverly Hilton. A Los Angeles County coroner’s official said the body remained in the building late Saturday. “There were no obvious signs of any criminal intent,” Rosen said.

Rosen said police received a 911 call from hotel security about Houston at 3:43 p.m. Saturday. Paramedics who were already at the hotel because of a Grammy party were not able to resuscitate her, he said.

The Los Angeles Times provides more details:

Investigators probing the death of Whitney Houston are trying to determine whether she drowned while in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton on Saturday shortly before she was set to attend a pre-Grammy Awards gala, according to a source who has been briefed about the case.

The source, who spoke to the Los Angeles Times on the condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing, stressed investigators still have many unanswered questions, particularly about what Houston was doing in the hours before her death. Investigators are also interviewing family members and friends to determine whether Houston had any underlying medical conditions, a practice common in death investigations.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office is expected to perform an autopsy Sunday, but it’s likely that a final cause of death will be deferred until toxicology test results come in. The source said drowning is one of several scenarios that investigators are examining as they gather evidence.

Beverly Hills police said there was no indication of foul play in Houston’s death but also said it was premature to say that she had died of natural causes.

Houston had drug and alcohol problems for years, and last May her spokeswoman said she was going back into rehab.

The Times reported that days before her death Houston had been acting strangely, skipping around a ballroom and reportedly doing handstands near the hotel pool. According to The Times’ Gerrick D. Kennedy, Houston greeted people with a warm smile but appeared disheveled in mismatched clothes and hair that was dripping wet.

Police said that so far they do not have evidence that drugs played a role in Houston’s death.

The New York Times elaborates on this gifted vocalist:

Ms. Houston was R&B’s great modernizer, slowly but surely reconciling the ambition and praise of the church with the movements and needs of the body and the glow of the mainstream. Her voice was clean and strong, with barely any grit, well suited to the songs of love and aspiration that were the breakthrough hits from her first two albums, “Whitney Houston” and “Whitney,” the post-quiet-storm ballads “You Give Good Love” and “Saving All My Love for You”; and the naïve, bopping, flush-of-love dance tracks “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and “So Emotional.” Only a few of her 1980s hits — “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” chief among them — explored love’s dark side.

Hers was a voice of triumph and achievement, and it made for any number of stunning, time-stopping vocal performances: her version of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You,” from the soundtrack to “The Bodyguard,” which topped the Billboard singles chart for 14 weeks; her dazzling “Star-Spangled Banner,” sung before the 1991 Super Bowl; and huge, authoritative songs like “Greatest Love of All” and “One Moment in Time,” which sounded as if they could have been national anthems too.

Ms. Houston’s signature was to let her Brobdingnagian voice soar unfettered. From a lesser vocalist that would have been a gimmick, but from her it was par for the course, just a freakishly gifted athlete leapfrogging everyone around her.

And now that voice has been silenced.  Not by old age, but the lifestyle she chose – one that ranged from the summit of her unforgettable rendition of the National Anthem to the slo-mo train wreck abyss of her drug-addled marriage to Bobby Brown.

In the wake of this tragedy, an addle-brained, uber-liberal, octogenarian singer with a flair for blabbering the wrong thing at the wrong time just had to throw his two cents in:

When Tony Bennett took the stage at Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy gala on Saturday, he offered more than just happy memories of the late Whitney Houston.

Bennett used the opportunity to ask that the U.S. government re-evaluate its stance on drugs, using Amsterdam as an example of a successful policy.

“First it was Michael Jackson, then Amy Winehouse, now the magnificent Whitney Houston,” he began. “I’d like every person in this room to campaign to legalize drugs.”

He continued: “Let’s legalize drugs like they did in Amsterdam. No one’s hiding or sneaking around corners to get it. They go to a doctor to get it.”

Sure, Tony – except that Whitney likely died after overdosing on legal drugs prescribed by her doctor…just like Elvis.

A Greece Fire

On By kingsjesterIn Politics1 Comment

If you have paid any attention to International News at all, you are aware that Greece is in the throes of an Economic Crisis, one which Economic Experts and Political Pundits say, may be headed to the United States of America.

Well, things have escalated in that ancient land.  Reuters.com has the details:

The Greek parliament approved a deeply unpopular austerity bill to secure a second EU/IMF bailout and avoid national bankruptcy, as buildings burned across central Athens and violence spread around the country.

Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens as black-masked protesters fought riot police outside parliament.

State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Shops were looted in the capital where police said 34 buildings were ablaze.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos denounced the worst breakdown of order since 2008 when violence gripped Greece for weeks after police shot a 15-year-old schoolboy.

“Vandalism, violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country and won’t be tolerated,” he told parliament as it prepared to vote on the new 130 billion euro bailout to save Greece from a chaotic bankruptcy.

Papademos told lawmakers shortly before they voted that they would be gravely mistaken if they rejected the package that demands deep pay, pension and job cuts, as this would threaten Greece’s place in the European mainstream.

“It would be a huge historical injustice if the country from which European culture sprang … reached bankruptcy and was led, due to one more mistake, to national isolation and national despair,” he said.

The chaos outside parliament showed how tough it will be to implement the measures. A Reuters photographer saw buildings in Athens engulfed in flames and huge plumes of smoke rose in the night sky.

“We are facing destruction. Our country, our home, has become ripe for burning, the centre of Athens is in flames. We cannot allow populism to burn our country down,” conservative lawmaker Costis Hatzidakis told parliament.

The air in Syntagma Square outside parliament was thick with tear gas as riot police fought running battles with youths who smashed marble balustrades and hurled stones and petrol bombs.

Terrified Greeks and tourists fled the rock-strewn streets and the clouds of stinging gas, cramming into hotel lobbies for shelter.

How did one of the cradles of ancient civilization come to resemble the Watts riots?

Dave Backus, of New York University’s Stern Business School, shared his thoughts, e-mailed “on the fly”, with The Economist’s View:

* Debt and deficits. Greece in serious budget trouble, with government debt at 125% of GDP and rising. Confidence in Greece has fallen with repeated upward revisions in deficit estimates, which raise suspicions that the situation is worse than reported.

* Contagion? Greece itself is small, but there’s fear that if Greece defaults or leaves the Euro Zone (or perhaps some other dire event), there could be spillovers to other Euro Zone countries (Italy, Portugal, and Spain lead the list). One version of this is that it would undercut the credibility of the Euro Zone. Member countries have (generally) reduced their borrowing costs by eliminating currency risk, but if investors see membership as reversible, that could change quickly.

* Conditions for help. The policy challenge is to keep the problems in Greece from spreading without creating adverse incentives for other countries. A bailout, for example, might make other countries less likely to resolve their own budget problems (mumble “moral hazard” around now). The traditional solution is some kind of “conditionality,” in which bridge loans are tied to concrete progress on the budget. IMF programs typically have this form, and the NYC bailout in the 1970s did, too. Such conditions solve the budget problem and make bailouts less attractive to other countries. When imposed by an outside agency (the IMF, for example), they may also provide political cover (“they made us do it”).

* Who? The challenge in the EU is that the rules explicitly forbid bailouts, so there’s no natural agency to execute a plan. That leaves us with ad hoc mechanisms (the finance ministers, for example). Or maybe the IMF.

* Euro Zone. It’s an inherently weak structure, since there’s no strong political entity at the top to enforce decisions on member countries.

* Who’s next? There are several other EU countries with budget problems. And in the US, many (most?) states have serious budget problems, California being the biggest one.

Per Money.MSN.com, our country could take a hit from the falling dominoes caused by a Greek default.

Exactly how far the damage would go depends on to which degree that bond markets would punish the bonds of Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain, which, along with Greece, make up the so-called PIIGS group. The exposure of U.S. banks to Greek debt alone is relatively small. But U.S. banks have $670 billion in total exposure to the PIIGS group.

Given the disastrous Domestic Economic Failure that is the Obama Administration, the fallout from a potential European Economic Disaster would be the icing on a very bitter cake.

The Arctic Fox Remains On Point

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Fresh off her triumphant Keynote Address at Saturday’s CPAC Convention, Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.

FoxNews.com posted this official summary:

Former Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin sat down with “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace to discuss the Republican presidential field, President Obama’s chance for reelection, and the current state of the tea party movement.

The former Alaskan governor was in Washington, DC, to be the keynote speaker for the annual CPAC conference. In her speech, Palin called out establishment conservatives. When asked who she was speaking about she explained that it was anyone for the “status quo” or more government. On the Tea Party freshmen members of Congress, who have not had a big role in either house, Palin said she “would like to see them in leadership positions.”

Recently the unemployment rate has ticked down and the president’s approval numbers have ticked up. Many have seen this as a concrete example of how the president will be the favorite heading into November. Palin disagreed by saying, “you ask those 13 million Americans who can’t find a job… they’ll tell you that no, this president and his failed policies should not be favored to win reelection.”

On Saturday Mitt Romney won the Maine Caucuses, ending a recent string of electoral losses. Palin said of Romney, “I think he’s a great candidate.”

Overall Palin stressed that the current field of Republican candidates need to, “all four of them, they need to quit beating each other up.” She continued, “We need to hear from our candidates, solutions. What is their plan?… the discussion needs to continue until we hear that.”

Finally, HBO is set to release their film “Game Change,” which is about the 2008 general election. Actress Julianne Moore plays Governor Palin. When asked what she thought of the impression, Palin replied, “We’re going to call that the Sarah Palin employment act and you guys need to thank me for employing more people, probably, in their imitations of Sarah Palin than the president has put Americans to work.”

What Fox News did not report (mainly, because they’re in the tank for Mitt) is this tasty little morsel that Governor Palin gave to Conservatives to chew on:

“I trust that his idea of conservatism is evolving. And I base this on a pretty moderate past he has had, even in some cases a liberal past,” Sarah Palin said on “FOX News Sunday” this morning.

“I am not convinced,” Palin said of Romney’s conservative claim. “And I don’t think that the majority of GOP and independent voters are convinced, and that is why you don’t see Romney get over that hump.”

“He has spent millions and millions and millions of dollars and hasn’t risen yet,” she added.

Gov. Palin has a point.  Take the Maine Caucus, for example.  As Mediaite.com reports:

Mitt Romney picked up a victory in the Maine caucuses Saturday to rounds of raucous applause, garnering 39% of the vote (2,190 votes). Ron Paul finished second, with 36% (1,996 votes). The Maine victory stems a state losing streak for Romney, who suffered three losses earlier in the week. Rick Santorum finished in third (18%), and Newt Gingrich was in fourth (6%).

In the days leading up to the announcement, the winner was expected to be either Romney or Paul, as Gingrich and Santorum had essentially ignored the state. Romney had planned on taking Saturday day off, according to the Associated Press, but decided to visit two Maine caucus sites instead, in hopes of giving a last-second boost to his chances; the strategy appears to have worked.

Per CNN.com:

Maine’s caucuses are non-binding, meaning the state’s 21 delegates will be allocated later. The state GOP encouraged municipalities to hold their caucuses between February 4 and 11, but some began in late January. One county representing about 2% of the vote was not able to complete its caucuses because of a heavy snowfall.

The contest was open only to registered Republicans, though independents and unregistered voters were able to register as Republicans on Saturday to participate.

Electoral-vote.com presents some food for thought:

Given that Maine is adjacent to New Hampshire, where Romney has a house, and not far from Massachusetts, where he was governor for 4 years, a win of 194 votes can’t really be considered a landslide, but at this point Romney is thankful for all the victories he can get. Noteworthy is that only 5,516 Republicans showed up to vote, even though they had an entire week to do so. In 2008, John McCain got 295,273 votes in Maine, so if we take this as the number of Republicans in Maine, fewer than 2% of Maine Republicans bothered to vote. That does not augur well for turnout in November.

Per usual, Governor Palin is spot on.  The Conservative Base, even in the Northeast, Romney’s stomping grounds, aren’t convinced of “The Legacy’s” Conservative credentials, and are certainly not very excited that he’s being pushed down our throats by the GOP Establishment.

Conversely, whenever Governor Palin speaks, the Conservative Base stands up and cheers, as was witnessed several times during her Keynote Address at CPAC.

It’s almost like America is a Center-Right nation…or sumpin’.

 

Sarah Palin at CPAC: Draining the Jacuzzi and Throwing the Bums Out With the Bathwater

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Saturday, February 11, 2012, a little after 3:0 p.m. Central, a remarkable lady gave a remarkable speech, as the Keynote Speaker at CPAC 2012.

Here is a summary from the American Conservative Union’s website:

Before a jam-packed crowd, with hundreds more watching on monitors in the convention center hallways and overflow rooms, Palin attacked the Obama economic agenda from many angles.She identified the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a key culprit in destruction of jobs in America. Instead of developing America’s own homegrown resources, the EPA has put the country in a position where it must rely upon dubious foreign sources, she said. And the EPA makes it difficult for businesses trying to expand although, Palin noted wryly, the EPA never seems to block the construction of new government buildings in Washington D.C.

“Instead of calling Washington D.C. a swamp, call it a wetland,” she said. That would be one way to slow the march of government, she suggested.

Palin also took aim at “crony capitalism,” which she said, was growing the size of government at the expense of average Americans.

“The politicians arrive as men and women (in Washington D.C.) and they become plutocrats. And they spread the wealth around to their pals.”

Palin also reminded audience members that CPAC was initiated by conservative activists who were out to remake the Republican Party. Reagan called for “bold colors, not pale pastels,” she said.

There is a certain paradox at work in the current political cycle, Palin said. “The conservative movement has never been stronger or brighter, yet the federal government has never cast a bigger shadow.”

The Tea Party has momentum because “the American people have woken up” to the dangers of big government, she said.

If the country continues on a path where policy makers attempt to tax and spend their way into prosperity, the future of America will look more like the old world rather than the new world.

“That’s the dream of the far Left, not the American dream,” she said.

Never before in American history has there ever been such a division between how the president views the “state of the union” and how average Americans view the “state of the union,” she said.

In history of our republic between how our own president sees Americans see state of union and Americans he’s elected to serve see state of the union, Palin told audience members.

Unlike President Obama, Republicans are looking to free markets and to long-standing constitutional principles, she said.

“His plan isn’t winning the future, it’s losing the country.”

What the ACU doesn’t tell you is that during the speech, she also subtly called out the winner of this year’s CPAC Straw Poll, Mitt “The Legacy” Romney:

Devonia Smith, of examiner.com reports that Governor Palin said,

“Our candidate must be someone who can instinctively turn right.” Sarah stressed that conservationism is not something a candidate learns running for office, adding, “It’s either there or it isn’t.”

And the jury’s still out on “The Legacy”.

Governor Palin continued with her stemwinder of a Keynote Address…

 …Palin hit all the hot buttons issues while slamming President Obama. The audience stood longest and cheered loudest following her shout-out to Israel, when she slammed Obama as a weak Commander in Chief, vowing, “We will refuse to accept that a weak America means a better safer world.” A president’s job is protecting “… America people and our allies. God bless Israel! (Related: Sarah Palin: Obama is ‘our temporary leader’ Israel is our lasting friend)

Rolling her eyes, shrugging, gesturing, Palin recounted the rise of the Tea Party, “because Americans woke up.” After three years of the Obama administration, Sarah underlined his chance was at a close because “We can afford no more — he mucked it up!”

Speaking of “mucking things up”, Buzzfeed.com reports that some protesters tried to disrupt Governor Palin’s speech, but got more than they bargained for:

A few protesters mic-checked Sarah Palin’s keynote speech at CPAC today but didn’t last long. Nothing could touch Palin, who had the crowd on their feet for large portions of her speech.

The protesters in the back of the room yelled “Mic-check!” and were immediately greeted with a standing crowd — and Palin herself — chanting “USA, USA.” Security quickly whisked them out of the room.

“We just won — see how easy that is,” Palin said after they’d gone.

One of her more memorable metaphors of the afternoon was aimed at the tone-deafness of the current Administration and Congress.  Governor Palin remarked that it was time that “we drain the jacuzzi and throw out the bums with the bathwater”.

Even though Governor Palin did make a dig at “The Legacy”, she had an important message for Conservatives, as CBS.com reported:

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin gave her marching orders to the Republican base at the Conservative Poilitical Action Conference here on Saturday, telling conservatives to “stand united” around the eventual Republican presidential nominee to defeat President Obama.

“We must stand as conservatives,” Palin said to a rousing standing ovation. “For the sake of our party, we must stand united with whoever our nominee is.”

Palin steered clear of directly injecting herself into the Republican fight for the nomination, declining to endorse a candidate.

“In America we believe that competition strengthens us. Competition elevates our name,” Palin told the CPAC crowd. “Competition will lead us to victory in 2012. We must stay true to our principles. I believe that the competition has gotta keep going but let’s make sure this competition brings out the best in our party.”

Governor Palin’s absolutely right.  This competition must continue, in order to prepare the eventual Republican Candidate for the withering firestorm of insults, falsehoods, and downright dirty politics that they will be forced to endure from the Re-election Campaign of President Barack Hussein Obama and his minions in the Main Stream Media.

Too bad the best Republican Candidate is sitting this one out.

Tags:  Sarah Palin, CPAC, Conservative

Mitt Romney: The “New Coke” of American Politics

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Sometimes, power brokers are so convinced of their own intelligence that they overlook whether the American public actually wants the product they’re shoving down our throats, and the result is a major fiasco.  America witnessed a classic example of this in the 1980s.

Start the Wayback Machine, Sherman.

MSNBC.com has the story:

It was early 1985, and the news was slowly leaking out: The Coca-Cola Co. was working on a new kind of Coke, a variation of a product that reached back through American history, a rejoinder to the emerging challenge from an upstart called Pepsi.

The company, already two years into taste tests and research, was working with the secrecy of a military operation.

Then on April 23, New Coke was launched with fanfare, including prime-time TV ads. Company Chairman Roberto C. Goizueta proclaimed New Coke “smoother, rounder yet bolder,” speaking of it more like a fine wine than a carbonated treat.

But public reaction was overwhelmingly negative; some people likened the change in Coke to trampling the American flag.

Soon people were hoarding cases of the old stuff. In June 1985, Newsweek reported that savvy black marketeers sold old Coke for $30 a case. A Hollywood producer, giving an old vintage its proper respect, reportedly rented a wine cellar to hold 100 cases of the old Coke.

On July 11, Coca-Cola yanked New Coke from store shelves. “We did not understand the deep emotions of so many of our customers for Coca-Cola,” said company President Donald R. Keough.

New Coke thus joined rabbit jerky, clear beer and the eight-track tape in the pantheon of marketing goofs, products that seemed like good ideas at the time.

Sam Craig, professor of marketing and international business at the Stern School of Business at New York University, pointed to what he and other industry observers have long considered a fatal mistake on Coca-Cola’s part. “They didn’t ask the critical question of Coke users: Do you want a new Coke? By failing to ask that critical question, they had to backpedal very quickly.”

Back to the present…with some help from washingtontimes.com:

Mitt Romney tried to erase any doubts about his conservative credentials, arguing that he’s fought against government overreach as governor of Massachusetts, while reminding the thousands of grassroots activists gathered here that he’s the sole candidate in the Republican presidential race who is not a creature of Washington.

[Just Boston.]

Speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, Mr. Romney vowed to be pro-life, abide by the Constitution and slash federal spending — without cutting the nation’s military budget.

“My family, my faith, my businesses — I know conservatism because I have lived conservatism,” Mr. Romney said, arguing that “I understand the battles we conservatives must fight because I have been on the front lines.”

Coming off his disappointing showing in the three nomination contests earlier this week, Mr. Romney is looking to recapture the momentum that he carried out of his back-to-back victories in the Florida primary and Nevada caucus. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s three-state sweep in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado has fed the lingering doubts about Mr. Romney’s ability to rally conservatives to his side.

With that as a backdrop, Mr. Romney assured CPAC delegates that he would fight for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as being between a man and woman. He noted that as governor, he fought against the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s decision to allow same-sex marriage and to prevent couples from across the nation from traveling to his state to obtain a marriage license.

“We fought hard and prevented Massachusetts from becoming the Las Vegas of gay marriage,” he said.

Mr. Romney trained his heaviest fire at President Obama, saying that if conservatives lead with conviction and integrity, “then history will record the Obama presidency as the last gasp of liberalism’s great failure and a turning point for the conservative era to come.”

And he looked to distance himself from his three rivals — Mr. Santorum, former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas — by playing up his executive experience in the private and public sphere and casting himself as a Washington outsider.

“I happen to be the only candidate in this race — Republican or Democrat — who has never worked a day in Washington,” he said, sparking applause from the crowd. “I don’t have old scores to settle or decades of cloakroom deals that I have to defend.”

“Any politician,” he said, “that tries to convince you that they hated Washington so much that they just couldn’t leave, well, that is the same politician that tried to sell you a ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’” he said, alluding to the infamous — and never built — pork-barrel bridge project in Alaska. The Romney camp has hammered Mr. Santorum for supporting the project when he served in Congress.

Gov. Romney went on to say during his speech,

I am severely Conservative.

I’ve never heard it phrased that way before.  Neither has Rush Limbagh:

I’ve… Look, I don’t want to make anybody mad here. It’s the end of a really hectic and busy week here — and you know I’m not a complainer. You people have no idea of the distractions that each program has had this week that I’ve had to fight through and try to ignore because I don’t complain. So don’t get mad. I may be a little giddy here. I have never anybody say, “I’m severely conservative.” Don’t get mad. I’m not… (interruption) No, I’ve never heard anybody say it. (interruption) No, I’m not challenging his claim to be conservative, don’t misunderstand. I don’t want to get inundated here by Romney supporters. I’m not putting him down.

I’m just observing here. I’ve never heard it said, “Yeah, I’m a severe conservative.” But I know what he’s trying to say. Now, I should add something here. Remember last year during the early days of the campaign — before the votes even began, before any of the primaries had taken place — I successfully, correctly identified for you what the Republican establishment strategy was. They were running a primary campaign 180 degrees out of phase from normal. The way you normally run a primary campaign, either party, is (and this is conventional wisdom) to get the base of your party’s votes, you pander to them. You speak to them. You just go, in this case Romney’s, and you be conservative.

Or, in the case of the Coca-Cola Company, you throw a different formula out there and call it “Coke”.  

Just like the New Coke, which they tried to force-feed Americans in 1985, was rejected by the public, so also, is this “New” Conservative, which the Republican Establishment is trying to ram down our throats, being rejected by American Conservatives.

They should have asked us first.

Moochelle and Her Food Police Strike Again

On By kingsjesterIn Politics10 Comments

Everyone has heard the old expression, “An army travels on its stomach”.  Everyone, that is, except First Lady Michelle Obama.

Reuters reports:

In an event at Little Rock Air Force Base, Obama announced a new Pentagon obesity and nutritional awareness campaign that will change nutrition standards across the services for the first time in 20 years.

The changes will bring more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and food choices that are lower in fat to 1.45 million troops a day at all 1,100 American military dining facilities in the coming months.

“This isn’t just a drop in the bucket – this is really a big splash,” Obama said.

“It’s happening because our military leaders know it’s not just a diet issue, it’s not just a health issue. This is truly a national security issue,” she said at the base, which already has a pilot program to improve nutritional quality of food available to service members and their families.

Obama cited a recent army study that says more than one quarter of 17- to 24-year-olds are too overweight to serve in the military. Active members of the military are also becoming more overweight, a Pentagon official said, and that causes a “readiness problem.”

“The military is always taking the lead in terms of setting standards,” said Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Jonathan Woodson. “Now we have an opportunity to take leadership … as we face this epidemic of obesity.”

Woodson said the U.S. military spends about $4.65 billion in food services each year. It also spends an estimated $1.1 billion a year on medical care associated with excess weight and obesity.

To promote good choices, the military will redesign menus and supply healthier foods in mess halls and in vending machines and snack bars on military bases.

The first lady, who has been doing the rounds of television talk shows and late-night comedy shows to promote her “Let’s Move” campaign to improve the nation’s eating and exercise habits, said changes by the Pentagon would send an important message to the country.

“Simply put, this is America’s entire military once again stepping forward to lead by example,” she told airmen at the base after touring a dining facility.

Whether they want to, or not.

It was intrusive enough when the first lady decided to sic the Food Police on our children, as if America’s parents were not bright enough or responsible enough to feed their own children properly.

The New York Times published the following story on January 25th:

Hoping to combat the growing problem of childhood obesity, the Obama administration on Wednesday announced its long-awaited changes to government-subsidized school meals, a final round of rules that adds more fruits and green vegetables to breakfasts and lunches and reduces the amount of salt and fat.

The announcement came months after the food industry won a vote in Congress to block the administration from carrying out an earlier proposal that would have reduced starchy foods like potatoes and prohibited schools from counting a small amount of tomato paste on a slice of pizza as a vegetable. Under the latest rules, potatoes are not restricted, and tomato paste can qualify as a vegetable serving.

The rules were announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Michelle Obama at Parklawn Elementary School in Alexandria, Va.

“As parents, we try to prepare decent meals, limit how much junk food our kids eat and ensure that they have a reasonable balanced diet,” Mrs. Obama said in a statement. “And when we are putting in all that effort the last thing we want is for our hard work to be undone each day in the school cafeteria.”

About 32 million children participate in school meal programs each day. The new rules are a major component of Mrs. Obama’s campaign to reduce the number of overweight children through exercise and better nutrition.

The rules are the first changes in 15 years to the $11 billion school lunch program. They will double the amount of fruits and vegetables children are served in school and will require that all grains served are whole grains.

All milk served must be low fat, and for the first time the rules set limits on levels of salt and trans fats. They also set a minimum and maximum calorie intake per day based on student age.

The government estimates that the rules will add about $3.2 billion in costs to the program, about half the cost of the proposed rules that were blocked last year.

Past First Ladies always took a cause to tackle during their husbands’ terms.

Usually, it was a non-intrusive cause such as literacy or combating hunger in America.

Not, in the case of our globe-trotting (on our dime) present First Lady, “Moochelle” Obama.  Under the guise of battling Childhood Obesity, she has decided to sic the food police on America’s school menus, turning our children into the Liberal Administrations’ own personal lab rats.

Furthermore, now that she has America’s children under her thumb, she has decided that our Best and Brightest need to be eating arugula…or something.

C’mon, Moochelle.  You Libs are already using our military as lab rats in one social engineering experiment…leading to the demise of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.

Our Best and Brightest are grown men and women.  They don’t need you telling them what to eat.

Do Americans a favor, Mrs. Obama.   Stand in front of a full-length mirror, with your back to it, and look over your shoulder.  Perhaps then, you’ll realize just how hypocritical you’re being.

You know…Glass Houses?

Tags:  Moochelle, Childhood Obesity, Food Police