Category: Politics

Liberal Coney Island Principal Indoctrinating 5 Year Olds

On By kingsjesterIn Politics25 Comments

Just when you think Liberals can’t get any dumber…

A controversial Coney Island principal has pulled the plug on patriotism.

Her refusal to let students sing “God Bless the USA” at their graduation has sparked fireworks at a school filled with proud immigrants.

Greta Hawkins, principal of PS 90, the Edna Cohen School, won’t allow kindergartners to belt out the beloved Lee Greenwood ballad, also known as “Proud to be an American,” at their moving-up ceremony.

Five classes spent months learning the patriotic song, which skyrocketed in popularity after the 9/11 attacks and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It was to be the rousing finale of their musical show at the June 20 commencement. The kids, dressed up for their big day, would wave tiny American flags — which, as the lyrics proclaim, “still stand for freedom.”

But Hawkins marched in on a recent rehearsal and ordered a CD playing the anthem to be shut off, staffers said.

She told the teachers to drop the song from the program.

“We don’t want to offend other cultures,” they quoted her as explaining.

The curt edict stunned both staff and parents.

“A lot of people fought to move to America to live freely, so that song should be sung with a whole lot of pride,” said mom Luz Lozada, whose son, Daniel, is in kindergarten.

The song has been sung at previous school events. Last year’s fifth-graders, including another Lozada child, performed it at graduation.

“Everybody applauded and whistled,” the mom said. “They gave it a standing ovation.”

Parents — many immigrants from Pakistan, Mexico and Ecuador — “love it,” Lozada said.

A teacher agreed: “It makes them a little goosebumpy and teary-eyed. I’ve never come across anyone who felt it insulted their culture.”

Department of Education spokeswoman Jessica Scaperotti gave The Post an explanation staffers said they never heard — that Hawkins found the lyrics “too grown up” for 5-year-olds.

Oh, yeah?  Here are the lyrics to Beiber’s “Baby”:

Featuring: Ludacris

You know you love me, I know you care

Just shout whenever, and I’ll be there

You are my love, you are my heart

And we will never, ever, ever be apart

Are we an item? Girl, quit playin’

“We’re just friends,” what are you sayin’?

Said “there’s another,” and looked right in my eyes

My first love broke my heart for the first time

And I was like baby, baby, baby, oh

Like baby, baby, baby, no

Like baby, baby, baby, oh

I thought you’d always be mine, mine

Baby, baby, baby, oh

Like baby, baby, baby, no

Like baby, baby, baby, oh

I thought you’d always be mine, mine

For you, I would have done whatever

And I just can’t believe we’re here together

And I wanna play it cool, but I’m losin’ you

I’ll buy you anything, I’ll buy you any ring

And I’m in pieces, baby fix me

And just shake me ’til you wake me from this bad dream

I’m goin’ down, down, down, down

And I just can’t believe my first love won’t be around

And I’m like baby, baby, baby, oh

Like baby, baby, baby, no

Like baby, baby, baby, oh

I thought you’d always be mine, mine

Baby, baby, baby, oh

Like baby, baby, baby, no

Like baby, baby, baby, oh

I thought you’d always be mine, mine

When I was 13, I had my first love

There was nobody that compared to my baby

And nobody came between us who could ever come above

She had me going crazy, oh I was starstruck

She woke me up daily, don’t need no Starbucks

She made my heart pound

I skip a beat when I see her in the street

And at school on the playground

But I really wanna see her on a weekend

She know she got me dazin’ ’cause she was so amazin’

And now my heart is breakin’ but I just keep on sayin’

Baby, baby, baby, oh

Like baby, baby, baby, no

Like baby, baby, baby, oh

I thought you’d always be mine, mine

Baby, baby, baby, oh

Like baby, baby, baby, no

Like baby, baby, baby, oh

I thought you’d always be mine, mine

I’m all gone

(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

Now I’m all gone

(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

Now I’m all gone

(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

(Yeah, yeah, yeah)

Now I’m all gone, gone, gone, gone

I’m gone

And this idiot principal wants 5 year olds singing about “hein’ and shein'”?

Listen,  little Miss Lib, if you find these lyrics offensive…you need to move to another country.

If tomorrow all the things were gone

I’d worked for all my life

And I had to start again

With just my children and my wife

I’d thank my lucky stars

To be living here today

‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom

And they can’t take that away

And I’m proud to be an American

Where at least I know I’m free

And I won’t forget the men who died

Who gave that right to me

And I gladly stand up next to you

And defend her still today

‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land

God Bless the U.S.A.

From the lakes of Minnesota

To the hills of Tennessee

Across the plains of Texas

From sea to shining sea

From Detroit down to Houston

And New York to L.A.

Well there’s pride in every American heart

And it’s time we stand and say

That I’m proud to be an American

Where at least I know I’m free

And I won’t forget the men who died

Who gave that right to me

And I gladly stand up next to you

And defend her still today

‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land

God Bless the U.S.A.

And I’m proud to be an American

Where at least I know I’m free

And I won’t forget the men who died

Who gave that right to me

And I gladly stand up next to you

And defend her still today

‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land

God Bless the U.S.A.

Ignorant censorship in the name of Political Correctness, is just one of the reasons the Libs and their messiah are going to lose in November.

And she is supposed to be an educator?  Puhleeze.

Obama: Data Mining for Fun and Profit

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

In this technology-driven age, where you can remotely view the lives of other Americans, through the magic of Web 2.0, the art of data mining has become more and more valuable.

What is data mining?  Is there a little tiny prospector living in my computer?

According to theatlantic.com:

Discovering information from data takes two major forms: description and prediction. At the scale we are talking about, it is hard to know what the data shows. Data mining is used to simplify and summarize the data in a manner that we can understand, and then allow us to infer things about specific cases based on the patterns we have observed. Of course, specific applications of data mining methods are limited by the data and computing power available, and are tailored for specific needs and goals. However, there are several main types of pattern detection that are commonly used. These general forms illustrate what data mining can do.

Anomaly detection : in a large data set it is possible to get a picture of what the data tends to look like in a typical case. Statistics can be used to determine if something is notably different from this pattern. For instance, the IRS could model typical tax returns and use anomaly detection to identify specific returns that differ from this for review and audit.

Association learning: This is the type of data mining that drives the Amazon recommendation system. For instance, this might reveal that customers who bought a cocktail shaker and a cocktail recipe book also often buy martini glasses. These types of findings are often used for targeting coupons/deals or advertising. Similarly, this form of data mining (albeit a quite complex version) is behind Netflix movie recommendations.

Cluster detection: one type of pattern recognition that is particularly useful is recognizing distinct clusters or sub-categories within the data. Without data mining, an analyst would have to look at the data and decide on a set of categories which they believe captures the relevant distinctions between apparent groups in the data. This would risk missing important categories. With data mining it is possible to let the data itself determine the groups. This is one of the black-box type of algorithms that are hard to understand. But in a simple example – again with purchasing behavior – we can imagine that the purchasing habits of different hobbyists would look quite different from each other: gardeners, fishermen and model airplane enthusiasts would all be quite distinct. Machine learning algorithms can detect all of the different subgroups within a dataset that differ significantly from each other.

Classification: If an existing structure is already known, data mining can be used to classify new cases into these pre-determined categories. Learning from a large set of pre-classified examples, algorithms can detect persistent systemic differences between items in each group and apply these rules to new classification problems. Spam filters are a great example of this – large sets of emails that have been identified as spam have enabled filters to notice differences in word usage between legitimate and spam messages, and classify incoming messages according to these rules with a high degree of accuracy.

Regression: Data mining can be used to construct predictive models based on many variables. Facebook, for example, might be interested in predicting future engagement for a user based on past behavior. Factors like the amount of personal information shared, number of photos tagged, friend requests initiated or accepted, comments, likes etc. could all be included in such a model. Over time, this model could be honed to include or weight things differently as Facebook compares how the predictions differ from observed behavior. Ultimately these findings could be used to guide design in order to encourage more of the behaviors that seem to lead to increased engagement over time.

Predictive behavior.  Hmmm.  Like, which presidential candidate an American is going to vote for?

The Obama Administration is betting the house that they can predict the mood of the country through data mining.

Per politico.com:

The depth and breadth of the Obama campaign’s 2012 digital operation — from data mining to online organizing — reaches so far beyond anything politics has ever seen, experts maintain, that it could impact the outcome of a close presidential election. It makes the president’s much-heralded 2008 social media juggernaut — which raised half billion dollars and revolutionized politics — look like cavemen with stone tablets.

The article goes on to say that the difference between 2008’s campaign and 2012’s is the fact that Obama’s Campaign Staff have:

• Created a holistic, totally in-house digital operation that is the largest department at campaign headquarters. In 2008, much of the social media and video was generated organically from supporters. As one campaign official put it, “digital is no longer a part of the campaign. It is the campaign.”

• Hired a number of nonpolitical tech innovators, software engineers and statisticians. “It has been incredibly freeing, because all election campaigns are a slave to history, and the history here is just nonexistent,” says Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. “So, we’ve been able to kind of reinvent it.”

• Invested mightily in cutting-edge technology that scales the website to fit the screen of any device. With nearly half of the U.S. population using smart phones, “responsive design” allows a user to give money and volunteer without bifocals. “More than 40 percent of all our donors are new, and a lot of them are coming in because of things like this,” says Messina. “Call up our website and try to donate on your phone and then do Romney’s. … Those things are important, because people are busy and people want to help us and they think about — ‘Oh, yeah, I saw the president on TV. I want to give them money. How hard is it?’ ”

• Developed a more complex symbiosis between the campaign and Facebook, which is 10 times bigger than it was four years go, and has far more personal information available to mine. “Facebook was just a site to see friends four year ago now it is part of people’s DNA,” notes a senior campaign adviser. Obama invites supporters to log on to the campaign through their Facebook accounts, which gives the campaign one more avenue for data.

• Opened the first all-volunteer. all-digital office in San Francisco where knowledgeable techies drop in for a few hours and strive to develop new software for the campaign under the supervision of paid staff.

• Staffed a full-time digital director in each of about a dozen battleground states to effectively run mini-general election campaigns in those states.

Now, it seems to me, that, analyzing results gleaned from a data base, is a poor substitute for actually listening to the American people.

But, hey, I guess that’s just my opinion.

Overcoming Obama’s Economy

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics15 Comments

Have you ever said something really ig’nant and had to back off from it?

President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) had to deal with that embarrassing situation yesterday.

He did some moondancing that the late Michael Jackson would be envious of:

President Obama on Friday afternoon backed away from his earlier comments that the “private sector is doing fine,” telling reporters that he does not believe the economy is doing fine.

“That’s precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference,” Mr. Obama said in brief remarks to reporters during a meeting with the visiting Philippines president.

Republicans had seized on comments Mr. Obama made during an earlier news conference, in which he repeatedly made the point that hiring at private businesses is doing well, while hiring by state and local government is not.

“The private sector is doing fine,” Mr. Obama said at the news conference.

But by later in the day, Mr. Obama had decided to emphasize that he does not believe that the overall economy is doing fine, as Republicans were trying to suggest.

“Listen, it is absolutely clear the economy is not doing fine,” he said. He suggested that Republicans had misstated his words from earlier in the day.

“I think if you look at what I said this morning, what I’ve been saying consistently over the last year, we’ve actually seen some good momentum in the private sector,” he said. “There’s been 4.3 million jobs created, 800,000 this year alone, record corporate profits.”

He added: “And so that has not been the biggest drag on the economy.”

Mr. Obama said the economy “needs to be strengthened,” adding that “I believe that there are a lot of Americans who are hurting right now, which is what I’ve been saying for the last year, two years, three years, what I’ve been saying since I came into office.”

Obama’s feckless Economic Plan has done about as much good for our country as a screen door on a submarine.

I know.  I was one of those affected by it.

Beginning in January of 2009, I attempted to sell Health Insurance, first with AFLAC, then as an agent with an Independent Broker.

I gave it my best shot, battling against Obama’s war on the American Healthcare System.  However, as I soon found out, creditors don’t take promises as collateral.

Desperate to try to bring some money into the household, a good friend of mine told me about an opportunity for a technology internship, working with a quasi-governmental non-profit agency that came in from Canada to work with the schools after Hurricane Katrina.

At the age of 52, I became the world’s oldest intern.

I began with them in January of 2011, working at a local school for 30 hours a week and the local branch of the state Employment Office for the remaining 10 hours each week.

It was a good experience.  The Lord taught me humility, while allowing me to catch up with technology, such as Skype and interactive whiteboards.  I also had the opportunity to work with some great professionals, and some great young interns.

While at the Employment Office, I was able to observe folks down on their luck, struggling to find work and survive in this economy.

I also saw American families whose existance living on the Government Dole, had become generational.

It is these people whom Obama and the Democrats have hypnotized into believing that Uncle Sugar loves them, and is their only solution to surviving a stifling existence.

They are so, so wrong.

The strength and vitality of America does not come from the benevolence of a Nanny-state Federal Government.

As the greatest American President of our lifetime, Ronald Reagan said:

The nine words you never want to hear are:  I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.

Being enslaved to the Government Dole steals one’s ambition.  It takes away any impetus or desire to create a better life for yourself and your family, to challenge yourself to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and pursue the American Dream.  It makes you reliant on a politically-motivated spider’s web full of government bureaucrats who view you and your family as job security.

I watched American citizens trapped in this web of government bureaucracy,  so numbed of any initiative that they once had, that they seemed offended that they actually had to prove that they inquired about three jobs that week in order to keep their “benefits”.  Others seemed puzzled that they had to search through the state data base and pick out a job that they wanted to talk to an interviewer about receiving a referral to, and weren’t just simply handed a job when they walked through the door.

My last day as an intern was yesterday.  This Monday, I begin an new adventure.  Thanks to another very good friend, I was given the opportunity to interview for a position at a 100 person, 5-company corporation.

Last Saturday, my friend called me with the good news:  I got the job!

The title:  Vice-President of Marketing.

I’ll be doing some Internet Marketing, including Blogging and Tweeting, writing press releases and newsletters, attending Chamber of Commerce Meetings, and, of course, other duties as assigned.

It wasn’t Uncle Sugar/the Obama Administration that gave me this job.  

It was a God thing and I hope you understand.

May his days be few; may another take his office!

Psalm 109:8 – English Standard Version (©2001)

Conservatism Rules! My 800th Blog

On By kingsjesterIn Politics8 Comments

Today, I am writing my 800th blog.  It seems like just the other day that my good friend, Col. Manly Rash, Gene Hoyas, now known as the Bulldog Pundit (genehoyas.com), was asking me to contribute my thoughts to his website.  Thank you, Gene, for all of your advice and unflinching support.

I began my own blog in April of 2010.  Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to share my thoughts with 113, 504 readers, and have been quoted on such websites as Texas Conservatives for Palin, OpenCongress,The Top Ten Conservatives to Follow on Twitter, and, of course, genehoyas.com.

So, my Conservative friends…are we making a difference?

You betcha!

Mark Halperin is singing a Democratic Dirge on time.com:

With five months until Election Day, Barack Obama faces a grim new reality: Republicans now believe Mitt Romney can win, and Democrats believe Obama can lose … Last week’s anemic job-creation and economic-growth data was sandwiched between two Bill Clinton specials: in one television interview, the 42nd President lauded Romney’s business record as “sterling”; in another, he veered from the Obama line on the extension of Bush-era tax cuts … The failure to unseat Wisconsin’s Republican governor Scott Walker in a recall election was another bad sign for Democrats since it will rev up conservatives nationwide, including the kind of millionaires who gave big bucks to Walker’s effort … Veteran Democratic strategists from previous presidential bids and on Capitol Hill now wonder if the Obama re-election crew is working with the right message … The White House remains on a rough political trajectory, with a potentially adverse Supreme Court decision on the Obama health care law looming, additional bad economic news from Europe coming and more worrisome polling pending … Another danger for the President: the media freak show. Stalking that circus’ center ring is Matt Drudge, whose caustic website continues to help drive the news cycle with an emphasis on negative, mocking items about Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and their wives. The latest sign of Drudge’s potency: Ed Klein, the author of the virulently anti-Obama book The Amateur, was barred from major TV appearances and mostly ignored by the mainstream media, but the book’s prominence on Drudge’s website propelled it to the No. 1 slot on the New York Times nonfiction list.

Cry me a river, Mark.  You guys have been supporting a socialist, anti-American, pompous jackwagon and a poor excuse for a president since the Great Pretender somehow got his amaciated hindquarters elected to the most important job in the Free World.

Well, about now, some of you “Fiscal Conservatives”, up in the Northeastern Corridor, otherwise known as Liberals, are saying:

Wait a second, you Mississippi Hick!  You can’t call Obama a SOCIALIST!  He’s just a “good guy who’s in over his head”.

Yeah, right.  And I’m a 22 year old, blonde Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader named Buffy.

Stanley Kurtz writes on nationalreview.com that

On the evening of January 11, 1996, while Mitt Romney was in the final years of his run as the head of Bain Capital, Barack Obama formally joined the New Party, which was deeply hostile to the mainstream of the Democratic party and even to American capitalism. In 2008, candidate Obama deceived the American public about his potentially damaging tie to this third party. The issue remains as fresh as today’s headlines, as Romney argues that Obama is trying to move the United States toward European-style social democracy, which was precisely the New Party’s goal.

In late October 2008, when I wrote here at National Review Online that Obama had been a member of the New Party, his campaign sharply denied it, calling my claim a “crackpot smear.” Fight the Smears, an official Obama-campaign website, staunchly maintained that “Barack has been a member of only one political party, the Democratic Party.” I rebutted this, but the debate was never taken up by the mainstream press.

Recently obtained evidence from the updated records of Illinois ACORN at the Wisconsin Historical Society now definitively establishes that Obama was a member of the New Party. He also signed a “contract” promising to publicly support and associate himself with the New Party while in office.

Minutes of the meeting on January 11, 1996, of the New Party’s Chicago chapter read as follows:

Barack Obama, candidate for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District, gave a statement to the membership and answered questions. He signed the New Party “Candidate Contract” and requested an endorsement from the New Party. He also joined the New Party.

Consistent with this, a roster of the Chicago chapter of the New Party from early 1997 lists Obama as a member, with January 11, 1996, indicated as the date he joined.

So…where was the Main Stream Media, back in 2008, when this Marxist was running for president?

Why, they were proclaiming him as their messiah.  He was going to make the oceans rise and fall with the wave of his majestic hand.

Sho’ ’nuff, he’s made a lot of things fall in this nation:

the number of Americans that have a job, our financial rating, our international prestige, our world academic standing, and the inherent class and decorum of the office of the American President.

On the other hand, he did make one thing rise:  Americans’ blood pressure.

Fear not.  Better days are ahead.  

The past is a memory.  The future is a promise.  Today is a gift.  That’s why it is called the present.

Thank you for putting up with me. God Bless You All!

Michelle’s Food Censorship – “It’s for the Children”

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

First Lady Michelle (ma belle) Obama spoke to a partisan crowd in Philidelphia, yesterday.

Obama propaganda outlet cnn.com reported that

First lady Michelle Obama rallied supporters in this must-win state Wednesday, imploring the energetic crowd to help give her husband a “chance to finish what we started.”

Touting the passage of health care reform, the improving economy and the withdrawal of troops in Iraq as examples or her husband’s achievements in office, Obama told the crowd to ” make sure that people know that all of this – and so much more – is at stake this November.”

“And in the end, it all boils down to one simple question: Will we continue the change we’ve begun and the progress we’ve made, or will we allow everything we’ve fought for to just slip away?” she said.

Predicting a close race, Obama told the crowd her husband “can’t do this alone.”

But, she argued, the president has demonstrated that he will fight for his beliefs.

“When we need a leader to make the hard decisions to keep this country moving forward, you know you can count on my husband, your president, because that is what he has been doing every single day in the Oval Office as President of the United States. “The first lady – fresh off a publicity tour to promote her new book on gardening – will continue campaigning for her husband Thursday with a rally in Virginia and a private fundraiser in Washington, DC.

Busy “little woman”, ain’t she?

Every First Lady has had a pet project.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1933-1945) National policy

Bess Truman (1945-1953) none

Mamie Eisenhower (1953-1961) none

Jackie Kennedy (1961-1963) White House refurbishment

Lady Bird Johnson (1963-1969) Beautification ( + Project Head Start)

Pat Nixon (1969-1974) Volunteerism

Betty Ford (1974-1977) Equal Rights Amendment( + breast cancer awareness)

Rosalynn Carter (1977-1981) Mental Health

Nancy Reagan (1981-1989) Drug Abuse

Barbara Bush (1989-1993) Literacy

Hillary Clinton (1993-2001) National policy

Laura Bush (2001-2009) Education

Michelle Obama (2009- ) Childhood Obesity

Okay, Sesame Street Fans, sing along with me:

One of these things is not like the other.  

One of these things just doesn’t belong.

Moochelle doesn’t only want to control what our children eat.  She wants to control what food our children…and grandchildren see on television.

The problem is, she doesn’t care if she ruins their childhood in the process.

And the out-of-touch Libs in Hollywood are more than happy to do whatever it takes to stay in the Obamas’ good graces.

ABC has the story:

The Walt Disney Co. will drop advertisers from its children’s programming that do not comply with tighter nutrition guidelines instituted by the media and entertainment giant, the company said today.

First lady Michelle Obama appeared with Disney CEO Bob Iger to endorse the move, which was coupled with health-conscious revisions to menus at Disney’s theme parks and resorts.

Obama called the decision a “game changer” for private industry.

“It’s huge,” she said at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., adding, “Just a few years ago if you had told me or any other mom or dad in America that our kids wouldn’t see a single ad for junk food while they watched their favorite cartoons on a major TV network, we wouldn’t have believed you.”

The first lady said Disney had “turned that conventional wisdom on its head,” noting it was the first major media corporation to adopt such a policy. Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

The new guidelines are an expansion of initiatives started by the company in 2006, using voluntary recommendations from the federal government. Iger said the continuing epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States spurred his company to shore up its practices.

“We believe everyone has a role to play in helping the generation of at-risk kids make healthier choices and we’re determined to be part of the solution,” he said. “If everyone does their small part, together we can create huge change without having the government step in to directly regulate or legislate our efforts.”

Roughly one-third of Americans are considered overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. About 17 percent of children are obese, a figure that has almost tripled since 1980. Michelle Obama said children see an estimated $1.6 billion in food and beverage advertising, many for products with high calories. She said she’d seen its effects firsthand with her own daughters.

“The minute you walk down the [grocery] aisle, the kids are singing some jingle, or they’re pulling on your leg begging you, pleading you for whatever they saw on TV,” she said. “And, as a mom, I know how that makes it even harder for us to keep our kids healthy.”

In an interview after his remarks, Iger conceded that his company could take a revenue hit as a result of today’s announcement.

“When I think about Disney’s bottom line, and we think about managing the company, we’re thinking about the long term and not any one quarter or any one year,” he said.

Iger would later add, “The more we behave as better citizens of the world, the more they will admire our company and like our products. This is good for the Disney brand and good for our bottom line on a long-term basis, even if it pinches us a bit in the short term.”

Advertisers in Disney’s television, radio and online properties will have until 2015 to comply with the new guidelines.

I was raised on Fizzies and Jiffy Pop, and at 53, I am within 7 pounds of my weight when I was in college.

Listen, Moochelle…it doesn’t take a village…it doesn’t take a socialist-run Federal Government…it takes a family to raise a child, with the help of those who love them.

Your “pet project” smells like tyranny.

Remembering D-Day

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics5 Comments

D-Day, also called the Battle of Normandy, was fought on June 6, 1944, between the Allied nations and German forces occupying Western Europe. To this day, 68 years later, it  still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history. Almost three million troops crossed the English Channel from England to Normandy to be used as human cannon fodder in an invasion of occupied France.

The twelve nations who participated in the invasion included Australia, Canada, Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, Greece, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United Kingdom, and, of course. the United States of America.

The codename for the invasion was Operation Overlord. The assault phase was known as Operation Neptune. Operation Neptune began on D-Day (June 6, 1944) and ended on June 30. Operation Overlord also began on D-Day, and ended with the crossing of the River Seine on August 19.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower faced a daunting task in the planning of such a massive invasion. He would have to move his forces 100 miles across the English Channel and storm a heavily fortified coastline. His enemy was the weapon-and-tank-superior German army commanded by the “Desert Fox” Erwin Rommel, one of the most brilliant generals of the war.

Less than 15 percent of the young men called upon to sacrifice their lives for our freedom in the invasion had ever seen combat.

A crossing of the unpredictable and dangerous English Channel had not been attempted since 1688. Once the invading forces set out, there was no turning back. The channel was soon hosting a 5,000-vessel armada that stretched as far as the eye could see, transporting both men and vehicles across the channel to the French beaches. Not to mention, the Allies also launched 4,000 smaller landing craft and more than 11,000 aircraft.

By the time the sun set on June 6, more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded, and more than 100,000 had made it ashore, capturing French coastal villages. Within weeks, supplies were being unloaded at Utah and Omaha beachheads at the rate of more than 20,000 tons per day. By June 11, more than 326,000 troops, 55,000 vehicles, and 105,000 tons of supplies had been landed on the beaches. By June 30, the Allies had established a firm foothold in Normandy. Allied forces crossed the River Seine on August 19.

There has never been an exact count of the sacrifices made on D-Day. Although, it is estimated that more than 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded, or went missing during the battle. 209,000 of those who lost their lives were Allied forces. In addition to almost 200,000 German troops killed or wounded, the Allies also captured 200,000 soldiers. Captured Germans were sent to American prisoner-of-war camps at the rate of 30,000 per month, from D-Day until Christmas 1944. Between 15,000 and 20,000 French civilians were killed during the battle.

Basically, the invasion of Normandy was a success, due to sheer force of numbers. By July 1944, some one million Allied troops, mostly American, British, and Canadian, were entrenched in Normandy. During the great invasion, the Allies assembled nearly three million men and stored 16 million tons of arms, munitions, and supplies in Britain.

Among the young men who stepped off those boats, in a hail of gunfire, was a fellow named Edward, whom everyone called Ned, from the small town of Helena, Arkansas.  Already in his young life, Ned had been forced to drop out of school in the sixth grade, in order to work at the local movie theatre to help support his mother, brother, and sister faced with the ravages of the Great Depression.

He was a gentle man who loved to laugh and sing, having recorded several 78 rpm records in the do-it-yourself booths of the day. And now, he found himself, a Master Sergeant in an Army Engineering Unit, stepping off a boat into the unknown, watching his comrades being mercilessly gunned down around him.

Ned, along with the rest of his unit who survived the initial assault, would go on to assist in the cleaning out of the Concentration Camps, bearing witness to man’s inhumanity to man.

The horrors he saw had a profound effect on Ned.  One that he would keep to himself for the remainder of his life.  While his children knew that he served with an Engineering Unit in World War II, they did not know the full extent of his service, until they found his medal, honoring his participation in the Invasion of Normany, going through his belongings after he passed away on December 29, 1997.

How do I know so much about Ned?  He was my Daddy.  You see, my love of Christ and, of this country, comes from my Earthly father, 40 years my senior.

I was raised by members of the Greatest Generation.  It is today that we pause to remember their sacrifices at home and abroad. 

May this day also serve as a reminder of the sacrifices made by our Best and Brightest and their families, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

May God bless them all and may He hold them in the hollow of His hand. 

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Recall…

On By kingsjesterIn Politics9 Comments

Obama’s minions in the DNC and the Main Street Media are on the verge of seppuku (hari kari) this morning because

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

The Good Guys won.  

Republican Scott Walker is still the Governor of Wisconsin.

Walker led Barrett in the official count 53 percent to 46 percent with 99 percent of the 3,424 precincts reporting. Walker’s lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, also was projected to survive her recall election.

The recall effort began when the first-term governor and Republicans in the state legislature rolled back what they considered excesses in the collective bargaining agreements of public-employee unions — an effort to cut Wisconsin’s estimated $3.6 billion budget shortfall.

Wisconsin went for President Obama in 2008, but the recall results give Republicans hope that their presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, can win there in November.

“Governor Walker has demonstrated over the past year what sound fiscal policies can do to turn an economy around, and I believe that in November voters across the country will demonstrate that they want the same in Washington,” Romney said.

Republicans see Walker’s win as evidence voters across the country want their elected officials to keep government living within its means. They said this paves the way for Romney to become the first Republican candidate to carry Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The outcome Tuesday is also a blow to the labor movement, which poured considerable resources into the failed effort to oust Walker.

Of course, Obama and his Administration were neck-deep in their investment in the Recall attempt, while feverishly attempting to distance themselves publicly.

And now, the ‘Rats appear to be ready to desert Obama’s sinking Ship of State:

“Certainly,” Democratic operative Paul Begala said about Obama owing it to Democrats to come out and support Walker challenger Tom Barrett (D-Wis.). “Of course. And he owed it to Tom Barrett. Barrett is the mayor of Milwaukee. He came out in the primaries, endorsed then-Sen. Obama against Sen. Clinton.”

“He also owes it to himself and to everybody else he’s going to have to deal with. This was a mistake, I have to say. The President should have been out there. I don’t it would have made the difference, okay, let me be clear about that. But, it’s kind of like Thanksgiving at your in-laws. If you go, it doesn’t guarantee it’s going to be fun, but if you don’t go, there is hell to pay. And that’s the situation the president is in,” Begala said.

Ed Schultz of MSNBC reacted to the political massacre in Wisconsin by doing a little “poor loser wish casting” last night:

Ed Schultz, an ardent supporter of unions and the recall of Gov. Scott Walker, reacts to the Wisconsin electorate voting to keep Walker as governor.

“In many respects it’s to be expected, considering how much money was thrown at this race. You know, NBC is calling it for Walker. Okay, I think it’s awful close and there’s a lot of absentee ballots yet that are still out and it’s going to be very, very close down to the wire” MSNBC’s Schultz said.

“Certainly it is not the end and it’s going to be an opportunity for the progressive movement to regroup nationally and understand exactly what they are up against,” a teary-eyed Schultz lamented.

“And this sets the template for the Republicans and tells the right-wing in this country that if they can outfund their opponent they have a real good shot as winning,” Schultz, an enthurasatic supporter of President Barack Obama in 2008 said toward the end of the segment.

Ed Schultz concluded the segment by making a wild assertion. “Scott Walker could very well be indicted in the coming days,” the MSNBC host said.

“So it’s going to be really a fight for the Democrats here in November, no question about it,” Schultz said.

Former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin put it succintly (and rubbed it in rather well):

“I think that the Democrats there understand that the president’s no-show represents the fact that Obama’s goose is cooked,” former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) said on FOX News shortly after Scott Walker was declared winner of the recall election.

“Jay Carney — I can’t wait to see how he spins all this and ignores it, and President Obama himself. They’re going to really try to distance themselves from this despite the fact that they, leading their lapdogs in the leftist media, made this a front page story for how many months? Months and months,” Palin opined.

The victorious Governor Scott Walker summed his victory up by saying:

Tonight, we tell Wisconsin, we tell our country and we tell people all across the globe that voters really do want leaders who stand up and make the tough decisions,” Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) said after he beat a recall attempt.

Walker said that while “bringing our state together will take some time, no doubt about it,” he believes “there is more that unites us than divides us.

Is this overwhelming victory by Gov. Walker and the good people of Wisconsin, a harbinger of what will happen in our country’s National Elections on November 6, 2012?

I pray that it is.

On Wisconsin

On By kingsjesterIn Politics6 Comments

Obama’s main flunky David Axelrod informed reporters on Sunday that an “army of lawyers” will be in the Badger state “to protect” the vote during the recall election.

And, sure enough, Attorney General Eric Holder is sending the troops in:

The Justice Department announced today that it will monitor elections on June 5, 2012, in the following jurisdictions to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other federal voting rights statutes: Alameda, Fresno and Riverside Counties, Calif.; Cibola and Sandoval Counties, N.M.; Shannon County, S.D.; and the city of Milwaukee.

The Voting Rights Act prohibits discrimination in the election process on the basis of race, color or membership in a minority language group. In addition, the act requires certain covered jurisdictions to provide language assistance during the election process. Fresno County, Riverside County and the city of Milwaukee are required to provide assistance in Spanish. Cibola, Sandoval and Shannon Counties are required to provide language assistance to Native American voters. Alameda County is required to provide language assistance to Hispanic, Chinese, Vietnamese and Filipino voters.

Under the Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department is authorized to ask the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to send federal observers to jurisdictions that are certified by the attorney general or by a federal court order. Federal observers will be assigned to monitor polling place activities in Shannon County based on the attorney general’s certification and in Alameda, Riverside and Sandoval Counties based on court orders. The observers will watch and record activities during voting hours at polling locations in these jurisdictions, and Civil Rights Division attorneys will coordinate the federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials.

In addition, Justice Department personnel will monitor polling place activities in Fresno County, Cibola County and the city of Milwaukee. Civil Rights Division attorneys will coordinate federal activities and maintain contact with local election officials.

Why is today’s Recall Election attracting so much attention?  To answer that question, we need to examine what is going on within the state itself.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Triggered by a backlash against the Republican governor’s move 15 months ago to crimp collective bargaining for the state’s public employees, the recall race has pitted neighbor against neighbor, damaged decades-old friendships, and, in one case, led a woman to drive into her husband when he tried to stop her from voting for Mr. Walker’s opponent in a primary last month.

Wisconsin has long been a purple state with a fluid middle. Its U.S. senators have included both Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette, the progressive champion of the early 20th Century, and Joseph McCarthy, the fiery anti-Communist senator of the 1940s and 50s. Four of its past eight governors have been Democrats; four have been Republicans. While Wisconsin has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1988—Barack Obama won in 2008 by 14 percentage points—the 2010 election gave Republicans control of both houses of the state legislature and ushered Mr. Walker into office.

Mr. Walker and his supporters say curbing public union’s collective-bargaining rights is essential to balancing the state budget, lowering property taxes and creating a business-friendly environment. Union members and many Democrats say public-sector unions weren’t the cause of the state’s budget problems and argue that Mr. Walker has used his office to drive an ideological agenda well to the right of what most Wisconsinites want.

Both sides, along with the national political establishment, would see a victory Tuesday as a validation of their position and a harbinger of the public mood heading into November’s presidential election.

This spring, as the recall entered the home stretch, political positions have become so hardened that a Marquette University Law School poll late last month found only one in every 50 likely voters hadn’t decided how to vote. The poll showed Mr. Walker ahead of his Democratic opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, by seven percentage points, within the margin of error. More than one-third of respondents said they had stopped speaking about politics to someone because of disagreements over the recall.

“I don’t have any of them for friends anymore,” Mr. Ertel said of those with whom he might disagree. “It’s just better to ignore them.”

The race has drawn tens of millions of dollars in political donations—much of it from outside Wisconsin—into a state of just 5.7 million people. Much of it has found its way into negative advertisements. In Sheboygan, a Republican-leaning middle-class city of 50,000 on Lake Michigan roughly halfway between Milwaukee and Green Bay, yard signs are ubiquitous and bumper stickers run to the demeaning.

Carol Zoren, a 73-year-old Democrat, sports a bumper sticker on her car that says “Vote Republican Values: Debt, Corruption and Invented War.” A few weeks ago, a man started screaming at her in a parking lot. “He said he was a veteran and he didn’t fight for people like me,” she said. “I told him to buzz off.”

Politicians have tapped into the discord. At a bratfest behind the Sheboygan County Republican headquarters, State Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, told a crowd: “The Democrats will do anything to steal an election; I do believe that.” The comment drew loud applause.

Hence, the ” uninvited oversight” from the Obama White House, while the “Boss”, in true Chicago Politics style, remains as removed from the situation as possible, in order to claim plausible deniability.

Stay tuned.

The Scott Walker Recall Vote: The DNC’s Revenge

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

All America this week will be focused on Wisconsin as Governor Scott Walker faces a Recall Election, engineered by the powers that be in the DNC.

Reuters.com has the story:

Political activists converged on Wisconsin on Sunday to join get-out-the-vote efforts two days before a historic recall election for Republican Governor Scott Walker that is seen as a test for November’s presidential race.

Walker enraged the labor movement last year when he eliminated most collective bargaining rights for public sector unions as part of a push to limit government and slash spending in the politically divided state.

Some observers are calling the June 5 vote the second most important U.S. election of the year.

President Barack Obama easily captured Wisconsin by 14 percentage points in the 2008 election, when he defeated Republican John McCain. Two years later, Republicans in Wisconsin roared back to elect Walker, defeat Democratic U.S. Senator Russ Feingold and take over the state legislature.

Mitt Romney, who has clinched the Republican presidential nomination, has called Walker a “hero,” while Obama has supported Walker’s Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

All over the Midwestern state – known for its dairy farms, factories and the revered Green Bay Packers NFL football team – political professionals and volunteers fanned out to ensure their supporters made it to the polls on Tuesday.

“It’s really about the future of this state,” said Bob Peterson, the president of the Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association as he grilled hamburgers on Saturday for volunteers who will try to boost the anti-Walker vote.

Civil Rights activists Reverend Jesse Jackson from Chicago and Al Sharpton from New York, both aligned with the Democratic Party, will be in Milwaukee, the state’s largest city, to try to spur a strong turnout by black voters.

If he is defeated, Walker would become the third state governor recalled from office during his term, after North Dakota’s Lynn Frazier in 1921 and Gray Davis of California in 2003.

Polls show a close race although Walker has held a single-digit lead since the recall date was formally set, and there are almost no undecided voters. The focus is on voter turnout in a state with a history of high voter participation.

Back on 2/20/11, in a post titled “Wisconsin, Obama, and the 10th Admendment”, I reported that:

The truth is, some of the main instigators behind the current protest in Wisconsin over Governor Scott Walker’s proposed budget cuts have been the Democratic Party and their sponsored group named Organizing for America, whose publicity arm operates the  DNC-owned website barackobama.com.

Per David Horowitz’s discoverthenetworks.org:

Organizing for America (OFA) is a project of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The American public first heard about OFA on January 17, 2009, when President Barack Obama announced that the organization would soon open its doors for business. Two months later, in mid-March, OFA was officially launched.

Basing its operations on the third floor of the DNC’s Capitol Hill headquarters, OFA consists of a vast network of volunteers whose mission is to “let their friends and neighbors know about the President’s plan to invest in America’s future, improve health care and education, create green jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and cut the deficit in half over the next four years.”

A New York Times report describes OFA as “an army of [Obama] supporters talking, sending e-mail and texting to friends and neighbors as they try to mold public opinion.”

From an article titled Fight for our State Workers, written by Mary Hough and posted 2/17/11 on barackobama.com:

UPDATE: For the past two days, thousands of workers have been gathering at the State Capitol in Madison, WI, to defend their rights in the workplace. From nurses to police officers, public sector workers and OFA volunteers have been protesting against proposed legislation to take away workers’ rights to bargain collectively. With a vote on the legislation expected as early as today, volunteers are already gathering at the Capitol this morning. It’s going to be a big day in Madison and you can follow updates throughout the day on the OFA Wisconsin Twitter feed.

Organizing for America is mobilizing on the ground in Wisconsin to defend the rights of public employees from an attempt by the governor to take away their right to organize.

Is Obama’s involvement in the Wisconsin protest a violation of the Tenth Amendment?

According to the Detroit Free Press:

President Barack Obama and his political machine are offering tactical support, eager to repair strained relations with some union leaders upset over his recent overtures to business.

The potent combination has helped fan the huge protests in Wisconsin against a measure that would strip collective bargaining rights from state workers. The alliance also is sending a warning to other states that are considering the same tactic.

…For Obama, stepping into a confrontation with a governor has its risks. The president is in a struggle of his own to tame spending, and siding with unions may cast him as a partisan even as he talks about setting a new tone in Washington.

Ya think, DiNozzo? 

Also, Obama has to keep campaign promises that he made to the Labor Unions.

Therefore, Obama will be standing beside Labor Unions, public and private, as they come together to carry out a $30 million plan to stop anti-labor measures in Wisconsin and 10 other states.

This new Labor “Allied Powers” includes AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka working with leaders such as Teamsters president James Hoffa.

Politics make strange bedfellows. The fact is, they haven’t been on speaking terms for years.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, R-Ohio, thinks that Obama is helping fuel “Greece-style” protests in the United States.

His political organization is colluding with special interest allies across the country to demagogue reform-minded governors who are making the tough choices that the president is avoiding.

So, who is the real power behind the Scott Walker Recall Election?

…Was there ever any doubt?

Is America’s National Reality Show Almost Over?

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Mareen Dowd, Syndicated columnist appearing in the New York times, apparently has lost faith in her “messiah”.

Yesterday, she wrote in her op ed:

…The president who started off with such dazzle now seems incapable of stimulating either the economy or the voters. His campaign is offering Obama 2012 car magnets for a donation of $10; cat collars reading “I Meow for Michelle” for $12; an Obama grill spatula for $40, and discounted hoodies and T-shirts. How the mighty have fallen.

Once glowing, his press is now burning. “To a very real degree, 2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear,” John Heilemann wrote in New York magazine, noting that because Obama feels he can’t run on his record, his campaign will resort to nuking Romney.

In his new book, “A Nation of Wusses,” the Democrat Ed Rendell, the former governor of Pennsylvania, wonders how “the best communicator in campaign history” lost his touch.

The legendary speaker who drew campaign crowds in the tens of thousands and inspired a dispirited nation ended up nonchalantly delegating to a pork-happy Congress, disdaining the bully pulpit, neglecting to do any L.B.J.-style grunt work with Congress and the American public, and ceding control of his narrative.

As president, Obama has never felt the need to explain or sell his signature pieces of legislation — the stimulus and health care bills — or stanch the flow of false information from the other side.

“The administration lost the communications war with disastrous consequences that played out on Election Day 2010,” Rendell writes, and Obama never got credit for the two pieces of legislation where he reached for greatness.

The president had lofty dreams of playing the great convener and conciliator. But at a fund-raiser in Minneapolis, he admitted he’s just another combatant in a capital full of Hatfields and McCoys. No compromises, just nihilism.

If he wins the election, “the fever may break,” he said. “My hope, my expectation, is that after the election, now that it turns out that the goal of beating Obama doesn’t make much sense because I’m not running again, that we can start getting some cooperation again.”

In his new biography, “Barack Obama: The Story,” David Maraniss writes that a roommate of the young Obama compared him to Walker Percy’s protagonist in “The Moviegoer”: an observer of his life, one step removed.

On CNBC on Friday, Romney complained that Obama has “been more focused on his perspective of his historic legislative achievements than he has been focused on getting people back to work.”

A president focused on historic achievements? Imagine that. But in his lame way, Romney got at Obama’s problem: The Moviegoer prefers to float above, at a reserve, in grandiose mists.

As Maraniss recounts, Obama said he liked reading Hemingway because of Papa’s “integrity of grasping for those times, those visions, that are ones of true magnificence and profundity.”

Cook told Maraniss that she thought Obama’s desire to “play out a superhero life” was “a very strong archetype in his personality.”

But superheroes and mythic figures must boldly lead. Obama’s caution — ingrained from a life of being deserted by his father and sometimes his mother, and of being, as he wrote to another girlfriend, “caught without a class, a structure, or tradition to support me” — has restrained him at times.

In some ways, he’s still finding himself, too absorbed to see what’s not working. But the White House is a very hard place to go on a vision quest, especially with a storm brewing.

In a related story…

Per dailymail.co.uk:

Reality TV shows are making increasing numbers of people convinced that they’re the stars of their own, unwanted television programs.

Psychiatrists are treating more people for so-called ‘Truman Show’ delusions — named after the 1998 movie starring Jim Carrey as a man who spends his entire life unwittingly at the center of a fictional world that’s being broadcast to millions of homes.

The startling cases often afflict successful people who develop paranoid fantasies that they’re being filmed at all times and that the world that’s in front of them isn’t real.

Their friends and loves ones are actors. The news they see on TV is made up to control the way they think. The things that happen to them are merely events staged for the amusement of others.

The result can turn disturbing and even violent.

For the past three and one-half years, Americans have felt like they were living in a reality show, sleep-walking through our lives, incredulous at the sight of our once proud nation, slowly being regulated to third world status.

We have had to endure the painful sight of watching our president, the leader of the free world, bow in reverence to tin horn despots, while alienating our friends and embracing our enemies.

We spent the time mired in a national malaise as our friends and relatives, and at times, ourselves, have lost our jobs, due to an economy that can only be described as horrible, with no signs of improving.

The entire Obama Presidency has seemed surreal at times, as if the entire country were stuck in a nightmare of our own creation, unable to wake up.

Hopefully, on November 6th, 2012, American will wake up and vote.