Green Lies: DEBUNKED!

The Little Green Book of Eco-Fascism: The Left’s Plan to Frighten Your Kids, Drive Up Energy Costs, and Hike Your Taxes – James Delingpole (Regnery Books)

If you’ve spent anytime pondering what can laughingly be called “climate science” then you know that lunatic left who lay claim to this “expertise” have made it a moving target over the past couple of decades. What started out as global warming shifted to man-made global warming which then became twisted into global climate change and now is apparently dubbed anthropogenic global warming.

Along this twisting path lay scattered literally hundreds of predictions of global scale gloom and doom and nearly has many debunked reports and theories posited by so-called “experts” on climate science that have proven to be made up, false or more often flat out lies! Yet to this day, the mainstream press, AKA “the lazy media”, liberal politicians and brain dead celebrities continue to tout this load of crap a serious science and a serious issue or as they often refer to it in hashed tones; a crisis!

 

So how does one fight back against this rising tide of stupidity? By arming yourself with a veritable encyclopedia of responses to the ever shifting climate change doctrine, in the form of; The Little Green Book of Eco-Fascism: The Left’s Plan to Frighten Your Kids, Drive Up Energy Costs, and Hike Your Taxes by James Delingpole. This handy little book is a compendium of the players, the scandals, the lies and the outright B.S. that is global climate science.

Laid out in alphabetical order, Delingpole serves up bite size recaps and handy retorts for all of the stupid arguments your liberal brother-in-law makes about global warming. What the heck was your sister thinking?! With entries ranging from Hansen, James to Gore, Albert to polar bears, the hockey stick and everything in between, Delingpole arms you to the teeth for Manbearpig!

Keep in mind, Liberals and climate change scientists never let facts get in the way of a good story; so at the very least, The Little Green Book of Eco-Fascism delivers enough humor to keep you laughing.

The Real Definition of Hero

American Heroes: On The Homefront – Col. Oliver North and Bob Hamer (Threshold Editions)

With over 50 years in and around the United States military; including 22 years as a decorated active duty member of the U. S. Marine Corp, Col Oliver North USMC Ret., certainly knows his way around the men and women who step up and defend this country and fight for the freedoms we al enjoy.

North has completed 50 embeds with military units around the globe including: battlefields in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Over the course of that time he recounts the changes that he has witnessed first hand, but more importantly he writes vividly about what has remained constant; the heroic sacrifice that these young men and women willingly make on our behalf.

 

In the latest installment of North’s American Heroes series, On The Homefront he follows these heroes from the battlefield back to home. He delivers personal insights into the inspiration and determination that goes into facing down what is often life-altering circumstances. The sacrifice extends beyond just the military member and on into the family and support network that often makes these heroes service and recovery possible.

North’s unique combination of personal experience, been there done that, and his ongoing efforts to aide, assist and support the troops and their families, gives these stories an even greater impact. North is truly a man who puts his money where his mouth is funding the efforts of his Freedom Alliance Scholarship fund through sales of his books.

I am proud to say that I have had the opportunity to interview Col. North on a number of occasions and work with him on a fundraising effort to raise funds for the scholarships that awarded to children of military members who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom. I refuse to use the trite term that they have made the “ultimate sacrifice” because I truly believe that none of these heroes willingly sacrifice their lives, choosing instead to go out fighting all the way. It is that fighting spirit that North captures so well in the American Heroes series.

The Childlike Mind of a Liberal

The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America – And What We Can do to Stop It – Thom Hartmann (Twelve Books)

They say you “can’t judge a book by the cover” but you may be able to take a stab at it based on the blurbs. It is a time-honored tradition for publisher to seek “independent” opinions about the author’s work from high profile, recognizable folks. The fact that Thom Hartmann’s latest is blurbed by a disgraced former member of the Obama inner circle and self-avowed communist (Van Jones), a thug union president (Richard Trumpka, AFL-CIO), a Sixties radical and domestic terrorist organization member (Tom Hayden), the only Socialist member of the U.S. Senate (Bernie Sanders), and an actor/environmentalist wing nut (Leonardo DiCaprio) should at the very least speak volumes.

There is an almost childlike quality to the liberal thought process; and Hartmann is a classic purveyor of the boogieman under the bed approach to trying to scare people with an imagined right wing cabal out to get the American people and to destroy the country. In The Crash of 2016: The Plot to Destroy America – And What We Can do to Stop It, Hartmann certainly doesn’t break any new ground; instead choosing to trod on familiar liberal territory, laughably trying to blame the likes of Ronald Reagan, the mythological Koch Brothers and “Economic Royalists” for engaging in this secret plot.

In a simpleminded fashion, Hartmann would have you believe that this cabal of wealthy right-wingers secretly control power. Certainly money plays a huge role in the pursuit of power, but Hartmann seems to forget the staggering wealth that is controlled by liberals! Hartmann’s prescriptions for fixing the problem revolve around classic liberal thought; increase the power, size and scope of government in all of our lives.

You don’t have to look far to see how far off the mark that idea is! Aside from the obvious failings of the economic policies of the Obama administration and the genius of Democrats in Washington who believe that food stamps and extended unemployment benefits are an economic stimulator; simply look at the state of big cities in this country. The top ten cities that are in dire economic states, if not outright bankrupt, all have one thing in common; decades of Democrat control. And these are the folks and the policies that Mr. Hartmann would have you believe are the answer for fixing our economic woes…I have to wonder what it is that Hartmann is drinking? Perhaps some grape Kool-Aid?

I think my favorite simpleminded section of the book is Hartmann’s plan to eliminate billionaires in the No Billionaires chapter. Apparently Hartmann has answered the age old question, “how much do you need?” The answer is $1 Billion and no more! Little Thommie would have you believe that because a billionaire’s wealth is soooo many multiples more than the average persons and that they can’t buy and equal number of multiples worth of stuff then billionaires are not job creators. Like I said, childlike. On just the consumer side, Hartmann would have you believe that billionaires can’t buy enough to create jobs. While Warren Buffet is certainly the exception to the rule, living in his Omaha ranch house, Hartmann believes that the average billionaire doesn’t own multiple homes, cars, and just mounds of high end stuff.

The point he completely misses is that most billionaires create stuff; not just ordinary stuff, but stuff that people want and that they buy, which is why they are billionaires! It’s not like those billionaires make the stuff they sell all by themselves; they hire people to make the stuff and those people take their paychecks and go buy more stuff from other people who make stuff! This isn’t brain surgery, its trickledown economics as envisioned by the evil, vile Reagan administration. By artificially limiting the amounts of money someone can make you stifle the desire to innovate and create. Apparently Hartmann is deluded enough to think that innovation will happen out of the clear blue sky.

Hartmann believes that by limiting freedoms and stifling innovation, the cornerstone things that make this country great, we can somehow magically fix our economic problems and live happily ever after. That’s the way fairytales end and that is the way liberals think.        

Real History: More than Just Dates and Dead Guys

Miracles and Massacres – True and Untold Stories of America – Glenn Beck (Threshold Editions)

History. The mere mention of the word can send shivers of dread up the average person’s spine. Anyone who ever has ever suffered through the average public school teacher’s history class can attest to just how boring the subject of history, in this case U. S. history, can truly be.

So what was it that made history sooooo boring? If you think about it, it’s what’s missing…great stories! Think about it…if history was delivered in a fashion that was more than just dates and dead guys and actually delivered so color and context; told real stories then maybe, just maybe history would be more entertaining.

Well the proof of that thought is in the pudding…the pudding in this case is Miracles and Massacres – True and Untold Stories of America from Glenn Beck. Beck and his team have taken a series of seminal American stories, warts and all, and illustrated with a injection of drama and insight and gotten the history side of the story through in an interesting and dare I say, entertaining fashion.

 

If you think you know the story of the My Lai Massacre, or Tokyo Rose or even more recent events like the so-called ‘20^th highjacker” of 9/11, I would bet that you will learn something new to the story. Perhaps the most intriguing story in the lot is that of industrial titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. Edison has been heralded as a heroic inventor that had a profound impact on all of our lives. In truth, Edison was a villainous, treacherous, nasty guy.

While Beck and company cop to taking some poetic license with broad brushstrokes in the stories, but not with the facts. Bottom line the facts stand and the tale sells the story. Let’s hope that this will lead to other pieces of our history being touched on in future editions of what will become a series of books.

Low Information Voters…Just won’t get it

Never Trust a Liberal Over Three – Especially a Republican – Ann Coulter (Regnery Publishing)

The old saying is that you tell a lot about a person by the company they keep; in the case of conservative commentators you can tell a lot by the people they piss off. In the case of conservative firebrand Ann Coulter, she has the uncanny ability to tick off most liberals, most notably the low information types that seem to dominate the left.

In her new book, Never Trust a Liberal Over Three – Especially a Republican, Coulter collects a series of her weekly columns and lays them out in a series of broad categories that she pens fresh introductions for. I’m not certain it was her intention or not, but along the way Coulter draws a road map for the communication challenged Republican party to do a better job of delivering their messages.

 

We are in the midst of a classic example of how the Republicans get messaging wrong. It’s not enough to simply say that Obamacare sucks! People have been told for so long that our healthcare system is awful that low information voters will think that anything would be a solution to that hot mess. Republicans need to make clear the FACT is 88% of those with health insurance coverage were satisfied with their plans and that they didn’t want to turn our health care system into the equivalent of the DMV. They need to make clear their plan for dealing with uninsured, pre-existing conditions and how the billions of dollars wasted on this entire process and the crappy website could have been better spent addressing those issues.

Imagine the impact that the ability to communicate with Coulter’s direct style could have on the Republican party. Unfortunately, the best conservative communicators aren’t politicians, but end up being folks like Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

With chapters on everything from: Guns and Crime, Immigration, Liberals and science, education and the judicial branch among many others Coulter give clear, concise and fact based responses to liberal Democrat lies. This book should be placed under every Republican politician Christmas tree and maybe more importantly forced into the hands of Republican consultants who seem content with blowing campaigns and losing elections.

A Random Act of Journalism

Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets – Peter Schweizer (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Writer Peter Schweizer is one of a truly rare breed; an investigative journalist. There are pretenders who lay claim to the moniker; those in nice suits, with perfect hair and faces that look serious into the camera as they deliver their story, but in the end are, just more empty entertainment for the low information types.

Schweizer is the real deal. He digs deep into his research and then knits together the pieces of the puzzle to tell his story in a way that has become all too rare; the random act of journalism. In his latest effort, Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets, Schweizer carefully builds the premise that both political parties are guilty of creating a system that has become a self-perpetuating organism that keeps politicians in what he rightly call the “permanent political class.”

 

Have you ever wondered why nothing of any substance ever seems to get done in Washington? It’s not because of gridlock or a lack of bipartisanship that we hear about everyday from the non-journalist media; it stems from what Schweizer describes as “tollbooths” and “milkers” those seemingly perpetual “issues” that Washington seems to recycle every couple of years. Party A has constituents that are in favor of some legislation, while Party B has folks who are against it; Party A will bring up the issue so they can milk donations from their side while Party b will erect a “tollbooth” to block the way and garner donations from their side of the equation. Nothing gets done and in a few months or years, likely around the time that Congress runs for reelection the whole process of milking and blocking starts all over again.

It’s good work if you can get it! You’ll noticed I used party A and B, not D(emocrat) or R(epublican) because both parties are guilty of this practice that results in nothing but keeping them in place in Washington. In fact there are examples where they have traded places on issues, one time being in favor and the next against a piece of legislation, based simply on who was ponying up the bucks!

Schweizer also lays out the case of self and family enrichment being part and parcel of this whole process. Ever wonder how Senator Harry Reid, who grew up poor in tiny Searchlight, Nevada suddenly, became one of the richest members of Congress with a $1 million condo in the DC Ritz Carlton? Schweizer lays out the details of the rise of not only Reid’s power, but the wealth of not only of the Senator, but of his family members. To be fair he also details the power brokering, Republican Blunt family in Missouri. These are not rare stories. The stories of families being enriched by having a Washington powerbroker in the clan like the late Arlen Specter, the late John Murtha, former speaker of the house Dennis Hastert among many other is the stuff of legend.

While the story that Schweizer weaves may lead you to throw your hands up in disgust and despair over having no way to fight the power, he also lays out the case for how this pervasive issue can be addressed by the voters. For those who are doubtful about the details included here, rest assured that Schweizer has included a plethora end notes and original documents in the book. This is a must read for any citizen concerned with trying to change the system which seemed stacked against us.   

Save The Planet…Kill Yourself

Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth – Alan Weisman – (Little Brown Books)

I have to be brutally honest; I would HATE to be Alan Weisman and to have such a bleak outlook on life that you end up loathing not only yourself, but every other human on the planet so much that you advocate the elimination of the human species in a misguided effort to “save” the planet.

Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth is Weisman’s follow up to the book A World Without Us a pleasant little tale that would have the world heal and replenish itself, once relieved of the burden of human existence. Like I said, pleasant stuff. Apparently uncomprehending exactly how human biology works; Weisman thinks that human’s could be re-introduced to the newly healed and revived planet.

Weisman’s anti-human screed is certainly not new, he merely picks up where the cult of Paul Erlich left off with his late 1960s doomsday predictions of population out of control and the Earth sucked dry. Weisman is lauded for his “journalistic” approach by asking a series of questions on the subject of a sustainable future. He visits 21 countries around the globe to try to get a handle on the question of what is an acceptable way to find and attain a sustainable population.

Like so much of the biased media, Weisman funnels everything through a jaundiced prism of his assumptions about the planet. He takes a statistic like the claim of a billion people going hungry and blames it on the assumption that it is caused by overpopulation and a lack of capacity to grow food to sustain the population. He never bothers to look at the question from the perspective of not a lack of capacity, but one of delivery. Is it a lack of food or the lack of a viable/reliable delivery mechanism?

I remember vividly stories of Bob Geldof and Live Aid rockers buying tens of thousands of pounds of food to aid the hungry; that ended up rotting on docks due to the lack of a system to deliver the food to those in need. Again is the question capacity or delivery?

The problem for Weisman, Erlich and their ilk is that they put themselves on the record, predicting calamitous outcomes and the always end up being wrong. Yes. ALWAYS WRONG! In the end the arguments these people make in favor of their position spiral downward into a cascade of ridiculous, disgusting or down right despicable conclusions. Weisman writes about a “distinguished” Japanese economist who claimed that a post WWII  baby boom was halted by legalizing abortion to avoid starvation and – “can actually grow happier as it’s now shrinking numbers approach a more sustainable size” Hey, get happy, kill a baby! Absolutely despicable, at least to normal people.

Weisman also seems obsessed with being able to control the population; not just the overall head count, but the ability to maintain order and control people. Which is really what is at the root of twisted liberalism; enacting controls on the masses. It is striking that rather than seeking solutions to the problems, real or perceived, Weisman seek to eliminate the “problem” rather than find the solution.

The Two Faces of Bill Ayers

Public Enemy – Confessions of an American Dissident – Bill Ayers (Beacon Books)

I have always believed that words mean something. While many people try to twist words to accommodate their need, perpetually living in a world of gray areas, more often than not, things really are black and white. I find that those who live in the world of academia have developed a highly honed craft at twisting words.

It is from that perspective that I approached the continuing saga of Bill Ayers, Public Enemy – Confessions of an American Dissident the follow up to Fugitive Days, the tale of his days in the terrorist group the Weather Underground. As I read Ayers account of being thrust back into the public spotlight during the 2008 Presidential election I was torn between the natural inclination of turning a light on this cock roach to watch him scamper or if the better solution would be to ignore him and damn him to the specter of anonymity. Given the outsized self-importance that so many 60s radicals bestow upon themselves, the later may be the worse punishment.

While Ayers, along with his co-conspirator/wife Bernadine Dorhn, lays claim a leadership role in the Weather Underground, he denies any responsibility for their actions, which included bombing the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and other locales that left three dead. Leader. “A guiding or directing head, as of an army, movement of political group.”* If he truly was a leader of the Weather Underground, then he is ultimately responsible for the actions of the group and the outcome of those actions; including the death of his compatriots who blew themselves up when a bomb they were building detonated. Responsibility is not something Ayers can wish away with a rhetorical flourish.
A dissident is defined as “one who disagrees, especially one who disagrees with the government.”* While I regularly disagree with the government, notably with the failing leadership of Barack Obama, I, unlike Ayers and the Weather Underground, have never declared war and taken up arms (bombs) against the government.

It is the duplicity of Ayers point of view, where he tries mightily to have it both ways that makes the story he tells here fall completely apart. While he may thrive in a suspended reality, for most, including me, it’s a non-starter.

*Dictionary.com

Bob Costas: The Patron Saint of the Self Righteous

Once again the arrogant, sanctimonious, midget sportscaster Bob Costas has chosen the halftime show of NBC’s Sunday Night Football to parade his ignorance. Costas took the opportunity to use his sportscasting perch to add his voice to the chorus of the politically correct, which includes our equally ignorant President, sounding off on the Washington Redskins team name.

Costas sounded off with the following comment; "Ask yourself what the equivalent would be, if directed [at] African-Americans. Hispanics. Asians. Or members of any other ethnic group. When considered that way, 'Redskins' can’t possibly honor a heritage, or a noble character trait, nor can it possibly be considered a neutral term. It is an insult, a slur, no matter how benign the present-day intent."

Apparently it’s an insult, because Tiny Bob says it’s an insult. This despite the fact that national polls of Native Americans find that 90% don’t find the Redskins name insulting. A full 79% of all Americans disagree with Costas and Obama on this issue. How can that possibly be?! He’s Bob Costas, he’s clearly smarter than the average Joe and if he says you should be offended by it, then you darn well better start getting offended.

Maybe if Tiny Bob, the patron saint of the self-righteous, bothered to take a look at the history of the Redskins name he would have learned that when the team departed Boston, where they were known as the Braves, they changed their name as a way to honor their head coach at the time, who along with four players on the team, were all native Americans. The Redskins name was never considered anything but a badge of honor.

Tiny Bob needs to stick to sports, because no one really cares what his thoughts are outside that realm, because he really isn’t has smart has he thinks he is!

 

 

  

Ron Paul: Capitalist

The School Revolution: A New Answer for Our Broken Education System – Ron Paul (Grand Central Publishing)

I remember very clearly the time I took something called the World’s Smallest Political Quiz. Ten questions total; five on personal issues and five on economic issues. Answering the questions online, I was taken to a graph that was divided into quadrants and that dropped me firmly into the heart of the libertarian section. For a person who believes in freedom, personal responsibility and small government it made perfect sense to me.

It also made perfect sense that I was drawn to then Texas Congressman, Ron Paul. I had the opportunity to interview Paul in the days before he ran for President and found his thoughts on limited government lined up well with my own. Paul is an accomplished, bestselling author and in this new effort, The School Revolution: A New Answer for Our Broken Education System he offers up his fix for the failing public U.S. education system.

Paul writes with a very matter-of-fact style as he dissects the current state of the centralized education system. Along the way Paul delivers a historical take on things through the lens of his own education. He also indicts the system we are saddled with for funding the education system. He posits the solution that we must somehow put the funding of education back into the hands of parents as educational decision makers.

I can hear the unholy howls of public education advocates and teachers union types in response to Paul’s “answer.” Like anything else, including healthcare, I favor putting the decision making power back into the hands of the individual. I am not certain that we could ever effectuate the wholesale change that Paul advocates. In this day and age of social engineering of liberals that has lead to the destruction of the family unit I can’t imagine what the country would look like if every so-called parent; just because you’ve been part of the process of having a child, doesn’t make you a parent, were to determine the education process for their children.

It does however make perfect sense that those parents who are capable of making educational decisions on behalf of their offspring, should be afforded the opportunity to opt out of the government education system and take their dollars with them to the alternative choices they make. This simple step will inject competition into the education system. Where there is competition, it naturally follows, there is the pursuit of excellence and higher standards. If the government schools improve, they can compete on equal footing for parent’s education dollars.

Despite agreeing with Congressman Paul on the personal freedom side, I could never bring myself to support his presidential runs, because his supposed support for smaller government rang hollow when he larded his districts pork barrel projects into house spending bills and sought cover by voting against bills that he knew would pass. In similar fashion, Paul uses this book to not only offer up an education solution, but to hawk his online education curriculum. While I am a capitalist and completely understand Paul’s goals, there’s just something a bit smarmy about the approach.

Jack Lew...Dumb as a Box of Rocks!

Obama administration Treasury Secretary Jack Lew got his ass handed to him during an appearance with Chris Wallace on Fox New Sunday. The verbal sparring was so one sided in Wallace's favor that Lew ends up sounding a dumb as a box of rocks. Enjoy

A Chronicle of Toppling the Taliban

The Last Warlord: The Life and Legend of Dostum, the Afghan Warrior Who Led US Special Forces to Topple the Taliban Regime – Brian Glyn Williams, PhD (Chicago Review Press)

Tales of military victory often center around public displays of heavy machinery and legends surrounding high technology. In reality it is more often than not it is the warrior that gets the short end of the story, while playing the major role.

Such is the case in the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan; where a relatively small number of U.S. Special Forces soldiers, somewhere around three or four hundred, played an instrumental role in toppling the hard line regime. Those highly trained forces were aided, guided and abetted by powerful Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum and his band of warriors.

It is the tale of the strongman Dostum (pronounced dohs-tuum) that is detailed in Brian Glyn Williams, PhD, latest book The Last Warlord: The Life and Legend of Dostum, the Afghan Warrior Who Led US Special Forces to Topple the Taliban Regime. Williams, a professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, had an amazing level of access to Dostum, his family and those that work and travel in the same circles with him.

 

It is from that insider point of view that Williams delivers a chillingly detailed chronicle of the role Dostum played in the 2001 defeat of the Taliban. This story often runs contrary to that espoused by the mainstream media who often portray Dostum as a brutal, murderous thug, they claim is responsible for the senseless slaughter of Taliban prisoners.

Williams portrait is one of a very hard man, who grew into power in a desperate time and location, with Soviet military forces battling for control of Afghanistan.  By the mid-1980s the forces under Dostum’s command had grown to a militia of 20,000 strong. The strongman’s forces would play a critical role in defeating the forces arrayed against them in the north on numerous occasions; not only the Soviets, but also the Mujahadeen and later the Taliban.

Instead of understanding the role Dostum and his men played in defeating the Taliban, the U.S. chose to marginalize him due to the public perception of his brutality. This approach seems to once again underestimate the role that these often brutal warlords play in a land that is the equivalent to the wild west on steroids. As the U.S. forces continue to downsize and withdraw, Williams makes it clear that Dostum and his Northern Alliance allies are gearing up for battle with a resurgent Taliban force.

Williams offers an intimate portrait not only of the warrior, but of the Afghan nation that so many have tried and failed to get their arms around.

 

Government Shutdown…grab a six pack and relax!

As the mainstream media and the uninformed populace that they under serve continue to gnash their teeth over the so-called government shut down, I can’t help but hear the classic line from radio reporter Herbert Morrison’s broadcast of the Hindenburg crash, “oh the humanity.”

Yes…how will we ever muddle through without access to the webcam of the cute little pandas at the National Zoo? It will be a true struggle for train nerds to get by, without a visit to the Steamtown National Train Museum in Scranton, PA. Not to mention that boating and recreation will apparently come to a complete halt in Harry Reid’s Nevada, with the lockdown of Lake Mead National Park. Sorry I must have missed that part of the Constitution where our Founding Father’s covered the forced housing of wildlife.

 

I love the now all too common phrases that private sector businesses use with more and more regularity, things like;  “the new normal” “wearing multiple hats” and my personal favorite “do more with less”. I don’t know about things where you work, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that there isn’t one “non-essential” worker where I work because we fully embrace not only the multiple hats concept, but the doing more with less as well.

If so many of the folks employed by the Federal Government are “non-essential” then way haven’t we released them to pursue their higher purpose? Not surprisingly the masters of spin in the Democrat party have quickly realized the error of their ways and re-labeled these folks furloughed and non-furloughed workers.

To borrow a bit of classic advice from the late Democrat, Mayor of Buffalo, New York, Jimmy Griffin during a snow storm “grab a six-pack, sit back, relax and we’ll make it through.”

Obamacare is a Train Wreck

I have a pretty basic question for all of the folks who think that Obamacare is great: Exactly how does it improve healthcare? It seems like forever that we have heard that there are 30 million or more uninsured...which has nothing to do with healthCARE. HealthCARE was fine; it's how we pay for healthcare coverage that is the problem. The Obamacare "fix" is to make healthcare more expensive for everybody...great fix!

This train wreck is having a negative impact on the economy, business and jobs...great fix! It really has not done one thing to address the shortages of doctors and nurses and how they will help provide care to all of the new people in the system?

In order to explain Obamacare, the Kaiser Family Foundation (hardly a conservative group) put together a cartoon...yes a cartoon!  It‘s actually very well done and might even help Nancy Pelosi to understand "what's in it." This clip concludes by proclaiming that after all is said and done after Obamacare kicks in, that about 30 million Americans will still be without healthcare coverage! Ever feel like you are chasing your own tail? These people are bozos and if you think that this Obamacare train wreck will fix anything then you are a bozo too!

 

Chris Matthews Is A Liberal Jizz

Chris Matthews is a liberal JIZZ and he doesn't speak for me!



Who gave this dumb ass the testicular fortitude transplant that led him to think that he speaks on behalf of all white people? probably the same clowns who are under misguided belief that race pimps like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson speak for all black people.

The Power of Rock ‘n’ Roll…Not So Much

Bruce Springsteen Rocking the Wall: The Berlin Concert That Changed the World – By Erik Kirschbaum (Berlinica Publishing)

I want to be clear up front; believe in the power of rock ‘n’ roll. It is a musical form that has moved generations, caused notable cultural, and world seismic shifts. But being equally clear; I find Erik Kirschbaum’s hypothesis, in the book Bruce Springsteen Rocking the Wall: The Berlin Concert That Changed the World, that Springsteen’s concert was the catalyst for bringing down the Berlin Wall absurd at best.

Kirschbaum, a U.S. born, Reuters correspondent based in Germany for more than two decades seems all too willing to ignore the world political tide at the time Springsteen’s historic, July 19, 1988 concert. Kirschbaum’s liberal panties show when he makes snide comments about conservatives and the impact they had on bringing about the end of the Cold War.

To discount the impact of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and even Pope John Paul II in bringing about a global change in Communist dominated countries from Russia to East Germany and Poland is to ignore reality. Springsteen’s record breaking concert crowd, with estimates of upwards of 300,000 East German’s, was not the cause of freedom, but a symbol of what freedom could bring.

Anyone who has ever been involved in organizing a huge, outdoor, event knows all of the details involved in pulling together so many moving parts that it often seems an insurmountable task. Kirschbaum’s book does offer interesting insight into what had to be a monolithic effort that went into pulling off this historic concert.

The History of America: A True Story of Guns

American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms – Chris Kyle (William Morrow)

Chris Kyle was the top sniper in U.S. Military history, having served for combat tours in Iraq, earning a chest full of military hours for his bravery in battle. His sacrifice and dedication to the United States of America is unmatched by anything with the exception of his love for family. Running a close second would be his knowledge of the tools he used to ply his trade;  it is with that background combined with his desire to tell the true story of the impact of firearms on our nation’s history, that he set out to tell the story of American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms.

 

With the same pride that he brought to his craft as a sniper, Kyle paints a in depth portrait detailing not only the history of the ten weapons and their development, evolution and implementation, but the impact that they had on this nations in varying points in our history and in many cases are still having to this day.

 I hesitate to say that Kyle has a love of guns, because knucklehead gun controller types will try to portray him as some sort of gun-loving nutcase, but the truth is Kyle brought a healthy respect for and an incredible knowledge of these weapons combined with a desire to teach others about the safe use of them. He doesn’t glorify weapons, merely places them in their proper and impactful place in our history. The information he imparts will make any who try to ignore or warp the impact of firearms on history come off as laughable at best.

There is a “been there, fired that” quality to many of the ten varying firearms detailed in the book. That experience brings a level of trust to the statements Kyle makes about each of these weapons. He doesn’t attempt to paint a glorified picture of each weapon, noting the negatives of the weapons where appropriate as they went through the various stages of design and development.

While guns certainly are the focal point and the perspective from which this book is directed, it is much more than simply another book about guns; it is as much a book for history buffs, placing each of the weapons in their rightful place in our history.

 

Finally! The Truth About Guns

Glenn Beck – Control: Exposing The Truth About Guns (Mercury Radio Arts/Threshold Editions)

I remember the conversation vividly. The national director of one of the nation’s largest gun control advocacy groups was in town for a second straight year to appear on at a local college campus to preach the need for gun control.

It was at a time when guns were a hot issue, with a spate of school shootings ranging from Pearl, Mississippi to West Paducah, Kentucky and Jonesboro, Arkansas had hit home with the shooting death of local Edinboro teacher John Gillette. As with all high profile incidents, the push was on for new, allegedly tougher, gun control measures to be put in place to “prevent this tragedy from ever happening again.” You never want to let a good crisis go to waste.

I had desperately tried to get the gun controller to appear on my show to debate the issue. On his first pass through town I got no returned phone call from his DC based office or from the local folks at the college. I had debated a wide range of folks on the issue of gun-control; capped I thought by a discussion with children’s book author Stan Berenstain, who had authored one of his Berenstain Bears books entitled No Guns Allowed; during which my responses to his silly points so enraged the author that he gutlessly slammed down the phone, leaving me to finish the debate with a dial tone.

On his second trip through Erie, the gun controller choose a different venue, where I had better contacts and while I still got the cold shoulder on him appearing on my show, I did manage to get in the same room with him prior to his appearance. When I asked him why he would appear on my show, he took my arm and took me to an empty corner and quietly said to me, “I’ve heard you debate the issue and I know I can’t win, so I won’t do [the show] it.”

And that is truly the cornerstone of the debate over gun control for me and the basis of Glenn Beck’s new bestselling book; Control: Exposing The Truth About Guns. Beck cites example after example after example of how gun controllers frame their case for more laws and more control based on fiction, half-truths and outright lies. It’s as if they borrowed a page from Joseph Goebbels, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

I can see the impact that the repetition of the lies has had on family and friends. At a holiday gathering shortly after the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, the inevitable discussion of “doing something to put a stop to this” came up. While I try to keep things on the lighter side with family, the hockey lockout was still in full effect so I could avoid the discussion. I may have let my blood pressure slip just a bit when I heard the standard lines about “assault weapons” and the need for background checks; I calmly (or so I thought) asked exactly what my family member thought an assault weapon was? Like most clueless members of the media, I received a blank stare and a shrug of the shoulders and a limp, “like the kid used in Newtown.”

I’d like to personally thank Glenn and his team for saving my familial relationships and my blood pressure! Now instead of trying (!!) to remain calm and explaining the where my family and friends have been mislead, I simply visit the truck of my car, take out another copy of Control: Exposing The Truth About Guns, hand it to the misguided individual with the promise that I will gladly discuss guns and gun control with them after they have finished reading the book. If I ever have the opportunity to cross paths with the likes of sniveling Piers Morgan or Rachel Maddow (that guy really pisses me off!) I plan to slug them in the nose for all the money they have cost me for these books!

One little addition I would make for those who end up arguing with idiots on gun control that truly stops these gun control nitwits in their tracks; ask them if they truly are so set against guns if they would be willing to post a small sign outside their home stating “NO GUNS ON PREMISIS.” It would show how strong their beliefs truly are and act as an open invitation for bad things to happen.

Jason Who? NBA Player No One Has Heard of Announces He’s Gay

Okay, so there’s a big Sports Illustrated story and the media is blowing up with news that some guy that nobody has ever heard of has come out of the closet and announced he’s gay. To call Jason Collins marginal may give him too much credit.

In 12 seasons he’s played for half a dozen teams and averaged 3.6 points per game. We are talking about a 7 footer who averages less than 4 rebounds per game! Let’s face it, the NBA is SO desperate for big men that you can have absolutely NO GAME and still remain in the league.

So this makes me wonder why anyone should care? This is the equivalent of Bob the stock boy down at the local grocery store coming out! Other than the professional ax grinders and special interest groups does anyone who has get up and go to work every day really give two shits? Frankly it’s laughable to see tweets of support coming from Bill “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” Clinton and Kobe Bryant who let fly with a gay slur on court early this year.

Collins has managed to hang around with pitiful skills and stats to match for 12 years! Now he’s a free agents with slim prospects at best of landing on another team which makes this “big” announcement more than a little suspect. When Collins can’t find a new sucker willing to pay him big bucks to ride the bench then he will be able to claim that it was homophobia and not his crappy stats that caused him to not be able to latch on with a new team.

Charles Sykes – A Nation of Moochers (St. Martin’s Griffin)

Charles, then Charlie, was the morning news guy on a rock station that hired me at the beginning of my career behind a microphone. While I was just getting started, he was moving toward the next phase of his career which would eventually find him becoming a conservative talk show host and author.

To say that Sykes is an opinionated, well researched and hard hitting is an understatement. As a recovering talk show host myself, it’s been my thought that if you want to gage just how effective a host is is in delivering his message, then measure him by his critics. Sykes foes spiral quickly down the familiar path of name calling, ad hominem personal attacks and those that claim he is a full throated liar, but can’t seem to manage to cite any examples.

Sykes latest literary effort, A Nation of Moochers, out now in paperback, details his case that the United States has gone through a shift in character and become, as the title suggests, a nation of moochers. While the left takes that as an attack on the 47 percent-ers, Sykes doesn’t spare many when he makes his case. He includes corporate/Wall Street bailouts, questionable tax exemptions, and other entitlement costs that cross all classes under the banner of MOOCHER. His “Moocher Checklist” is a wildly sweeping and detailed airing of moocher laundry.

Sykes laments the seeming passing of character traits like self-reliance and personal responsibility and the upshot of the scrambling for a handout mindset. It’s pretty easy to see his point when you consider that our parents and grandparents were embarrassed to be on the dole for even a short time while today we have folks decrying the lack of fairness that unemployment benefits run dry after a staggering 99 weeks! Amazingly much of the gnashing of teeth seems to be coming from our so-called “leaders” like Nancy Pelosi; who famously tried to sell us the bullshit that the fastest way to grow the economy was more public benefits!

I’d like to give Sykes credit for driving so many liberals to the brink of their sanity with his well-researched points, but for the very ludicrous nature of their stance had them on the edge from the start.  

 

Philip Mudd – Take Down: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda (University of Pennsylvania Press)

Disappointing.

It’s seems the best word that I can come up with to describe Philip Mudd’s book, Take Down: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda. For a book that carries the a subtitle that professes to offer an insider’s point of view of critical piece of the war on terror it falls more than a little flat.

Mudd, served as the Deputy Director of the Counterterrorist Center at the CIA, so his creds would suggest an access to a multitude of insider information. While there are certain understandable limitations due to national security concerns, other who have had less access than Mudd, have offered up a greater level of detail and insight into the inner workings of counter terrorism.

In the preface, Mudd details how he came to work at the CIA in what amounts to a post-graduate in need of a better job lark that turned into a multiple decades long career that saw him rise to highest levels of the Agency. I can’t quite decide if Mudd chose to play things close to the vest out of loyalty or if he was more a political creation who showed an adeptness working the corridors of power that groomed his steady rise or was just a guy who was never a party to the heavy lifting and nasty side of intelligence.

Tapping out at just 200 pages including the less than detailed index and no end notes, Take Down is a rather thin, 30,000 foot perspective rather than the advertised insider view.

Kim Ghattas – The Secretary (Times Books)

The publicity blurbs for this book are laced with terms like: eye-opening, revealing, poignant, gripping, terrific, vivid, colorful, candid, fast-paced and substantive. Touting unprecedented access to a sitting Secretary of State, The Secretary: A Journey With Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power from BBC, State Department radio and TV correspondent Kim Ghattus promised an intimate portrait of American foreign policy from the top down.

What it delivers is something altogether different. The Secretary reads like two storylines under one cover; the first a jaundiced, “journalist” almost awestruck tale of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama who approaches things from the point of view that the United States is almost irreparably damaged on the world stage and only Obama and Clinton can fix it. While that may be Ms. Ghattus’ point of view, I think the record of the first term speaks volumes about the inept nature of the Obama foreign policy; makes me long for the day of George W. Bush’s “strategery.”

Second the book spirals away from its proclaimed subject and becomes a screed for the authors world view more than Obama/Clinton doctrine.

It does take long for the fawning to get rolling with the line early on; “Although he had belittled her foreign policy experience during the campaign, Obama knew that only Clinton came with the built-in international stature and credibility that allowed her to instantly board a plane and stand in for him while he fixed the economy at home.” It begs the questions; how’s that working out for you? With the economy continuing to stagnate into the second term. It’s also laughable on its face that a partial term Senator and community organizer could be critical of the foreign policy stance of a one-term Senator, whose foreign policy experience amounted to hosting teas for foreign dignitary’s wives while First Lady.

Ghattas’ liberal plumage is never more on full display than when she gives all of one paragraph of coverage to the 9/11/12 Benghazi, Libya assassination of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and as she puts it “three other Americans.” She writes off the fallout from the attack as “partisan criticism” claiming that “Clinton managed to dodge most of the acrimonious attacks.” Only in the twisted mind of a liberal could an epic foreign policy failure and the cover up that followed be couched as partisan! And for the record the three Americans that lost their lives were: Sean Smith, an information management officer, and former U.S. Navy SEALs; Tyrone S. Woods, a senior security specialist and Glen Doherty, a security contactor and former SEAL Sniper.

At this point, only history will bring clarity to the level of foreign policy incompetence of Obama and Clinton and the devastating effect it will have around the globe. Certainly Ms. Gahttas has done nothing to paint a clear picture.

Brandon Webb & Glen Doherty – Navy SEAL Sniper: An Intimate Look at the Sniper of the 21st Century (Skyhorse Publishing)

If the U.S. Navy SEALs are the elite special forces, fighters of the U.S. Military, then the Navy Seal Sniper is the elite of the elite. They have passed the grueling, six month long,  BUD/S Training course that is a mental and physical challenge; and then been selected to tackle the next level and become Navy SEAL Snipers.

Both authors; Brandon Webb, a retired Navy SEAL Sniper, who notched combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan among other hot spots and Glen Doherty, a combat decorated SEAL, who was killed in action in Benghazi, Libya while attempting to rescue U. S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, bring a battle tested, authentic feel to the writing of this book.

Navy SEAL Sniper: An Intimate Look at the Sniper of the 21st Century spells out the evolution of the sniper, not only from the historical perspective, but the transition of the U.S. Sniper in particular; from good old country boy who was handy with a hunting rifle, to the research and development of technology that assists and elevates the role of the Sniper to that of one of the most effective and deadly, tools in the military toolbox.

Webb and Doherty detail the training that SEAL snipers go through to work in settings that range from mountainous jungle regions to urban settings. They also dissect a full scope of sniper gear including weapons, optics, camouflage, and technology that has improved accuracy and effectiveness. They spend considerable focus on the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of a variety of sniper weapons.

While the book is an encyclopedic compendium of all things sniper, it doesn’t read like an encyclopedia. It clear spells out the mechanics of weaponry without getting bogged down in too much technical jargon. The photos and design graphics that accompany the book are amazing and provide a balance to narrative.

It is the clear level of experience and intelligence that Webb and Doherty brought to the project that shines through in the writing; there is a well earned level of pride in the training they undertook and the work that they did on behalf of this country. 

 

  

Dahlkemper Talking Political Vision Is Laughable at Best

I am always amused by how some politicians view themselves. I laughed out loud when I read accounts of former Congresswomen Kathy Dahlkemper’s announcement that she was tossing her hat into the race for the Democrat nomination for County Executive against incumbent Barry Grossman.

Dahlkemper laughably proclaimed that Erie County’s top job called for more visionary thinking on economic development, poverty and stemming the areas perpetual brain drain. My first reaction was what was her first clue? And the second was REALLY?! Political vision from a women whose only experience in public office came in her one term in Washington, where she served as a reliable rubber stamp for Nancy Pelosi and Barrack Obama.

Pardon me, but W T F?! How can anyone possibly take this women seriously? Her vote in the affirmative for Obamacare has saddled not only Erie County, but the entire United States with one of the most detrimental to business pieces of legislation in the history of the country! The economic devastation that this bill will cause to the country will only continue to grow as its multiple parts begin to take effect.

Talk about poverty…Ms. Dahlkemper’s vote will spur businesses that are teetering on the brink of insolvency to go under and others who have ability to choose to depart Erie County and take their business elsewhere. Imagine Erie without GE Transportation. Not a pretty picture as that proverbial snowball rolls down hill and comes to rest at Ms. Dahlkemper’s feet.

The biggest problem with economic development in Erie County has nothing to do with a lack of political vision on the part of its County Executive, but an unwieldy web of competing entities struggling for funding and trying to cling to their own piece of the turf. It’s pretty hard to be effective when you have more than 20 groups posturing for a place in the spotlight. No one wants to give an inch in their little fiefdom, so nothing gets accomplished.

Now imagine someone as clueless as Kathy Dahlkemper bumbling and stumbling into the mess. While Grossman hasn’t done much to fire innovation in his first term the thought of Dahlkemper in that role is a truly frightening thought!

Neil Barofsky – Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street (Free Press) Paperback Edition with new foreward

Washington never met an acronym or a program it couldn’t throw at a problem. If the problem is big enough, the remedy seems to be to throw more acronym laden programs at it; not in an effort to fix the problem, but more often than not to merely appear like the problem is being addressed.

Neil Barofsky was nominated as the SIGTARP that was nominated in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration in an effort to ensure against waste, fraud and abuse in the $700 billion TARP program. In English, Barofsky was the lawyer charged with unenviable task of trying to prevent politicians and Wall Street types who were largely responsible for creating the economic circumstances that created the financial mess that necessitated the Troubled Asset Relief Program; more correctly labeled the Wall Street bailout.

In Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street Barofsky tries to valiantly to detail the machinations and internal struggles he faced in the push and pull between Washington and Wall Street. The incestuous nature of so many former Wall Street investment bankers retiring to move over to government side of the street to take on high level roles in presidential administrations screams with a fox guarding the henhouse cartoonish quality.

The picture that is painted by Bailout and so many other Washington insider books really makes it crystal clear why the American people have it right when they show an ever increasing distrust and disgust with everything happening in our nation’s capital. Forget about the best and the brightest we are saddled with lowest of the low; people more focused self-preservation and self-promotion than with truly doing what it best for the country and its people.

The insights that Barofsky offers about the nomination process should sicken any taxpayer concerned with our future. Battling against the odds Barofsky, did his noble best to prevent total anarchy from setting in, in a scenario that had the potential to be fraught with fraud and abuse.

This should be treated as a clarion call that in order to truly clean up the mess that has been created by politicians and Wall Street insiders would be to bring in outsiders who are skilled not in the workings of Wall Street/Washington axis, but folks that are skilled forensic accountants and investigators who are focused on bringing real change to real problems. I’m not sure if I should commend Barofsky for his efforts or question his sanity for taking on this insurmountable challenge.

Betsy McCaughey – Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving the New Healthcare Law (Regnery Publishing)

During the debate over the Affordable Care Act, which better known as Obamacare, then Speaker of the House and well known MENSA member Nancy Pelosi famously proclaimed “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.” Unlike the genius Pelosi and I would safely bet a preponderance of the then members of the House and Senate who voted for this legislation, former New York Lt. Governor and health policy advocate Betsy McCaughey has actually read the 2572 pages of this convoluted law in its entirety.

McCaughey was a tireless campaigner against the passage of this mess and as now delivered a concise rendering of what the law actually says and does to the American people and the U.S. healthcare system in Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving the New Healthcare Law.

While the chatter leading up to the passage of the law painted a wonderful picture full of all of the tremendous benefits that the American people would reap under this new approach to healthcare. But like so much that comes out of Washington, the American people were sold a bill of goods and the promised savings and improvements to healthcare delivery have already been proven to be an outright lie even before much of the law takes full effect.

McCaughey spells out the reality of the healthcare law including;

• The implementation of the largest tax increase in the last 20 years

• The tremendous cuts to payments that doctors, hospitals, and many other healthcare providers will receive for care delivered to the elderly.

• Why a massive number of employers who currently provide healthcare insurance are considering dropping those plans or cutting down the number of folks who participate in the benefit by slashing workforce or the number of hours workers currently work.

• If you’re wondering about the huge growth in the number of IRS employees being added to the federal payroll that is the mechanism that will be used for reporting and tracking if you receive employer provided healthcare and how much employers contribute to the cost of those plans.

 McCaughey spell out the cold, hard, reality of Obamacare in direct, easy to understand language that arms readers with the truth about what’s actually in the law. Beating Obamacare: Your Handbook for Surviving the New Healthcare Law, should be required reading for so-called best and the brightest on Capitol Hill who foisted this 20 pound legislative turd onto the American people. I would hope that Ms. McCaughey would also be kind enough to send a personally signed copy over to Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts whose misguided vote allowed this nightmare to continue.