Soros: The Dog That Doesn't Bark

Having had the privilege of witnessing 62 springs in this our glorious northern hemisphere – and, yes, I have already applied to receive Social Security – I have come to the conclusion that there must be a hidden hand directing all this – sorry Lou. How else would one explain the precise timing, the sheer beauty of emerging flora from the tiny snowdrop to the greening of the mighty oak; the return of the Robins and Cardinals; the sap rising in the old Maples that stand guard around the house? It cannot be an accident.

At the same time, it is clear to me that with all this glorious precision surrounding us, there must also be an author behind the political mess we find ourselves in. It can’t just be put down to neglect. If it were due to pure absence, we would hardly take note; we would live like the animals, in perfect harmony with our environment and with each other. We would not feel compelled to envision a God to either worship or deny. No, absence cannot explain the mess that Washington has created.

To put wars, systemic corruption and hatred down to chance is as silly as saying that existence has no father. My obsession with finding the hidden hand that’s guiding our nation to ruin is based on the belief that someone must be held accountable. It’s obviously not Obama. He’s much too visible – a useful idiot. In this case, it must be the dog who doesn’t bark; the dog whose existence is easy to deny, as we find it easy to deny God.

My candidate is George Soros who seems to have his paws into practically everything that stinks. He appears to be a man of many personal hatreds. He has all the money in the world. He can shake up dictatorships as well as kingdoms. Democracies are harder to pry loose from their moorings; this just goes to show you how far we’ve fallen already.

Take Wisconsin, for example. Wisconsin elects a governor with the mandate to get its house in order. He tries to do so amid much vocal opposition, much of it imported from outside the state. Today there is an electoral contest for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court which has up till now held a narrow conservative majority. Today’s election could shift the balance in favor of the liberals. If this were to happen, all the governor’s achievements will likely be overturned.

Tonight, this election is too close to call. Only a couple hundred votes separate the candidates. It is claimed that a lot of union money has poured into the state to defeat the conservative incumbant. Not mentioned in most reporting is that in a survey of attorneys conducted by the Milwaukee Bar Association in February 2011, Prosser, the conservative, received 296 "qualified" votes compared to 112 for Kloppenburg, Prosser’s liberal opponent. In addition, in Wisconsin’s non-partisan Supreme Court Primary, Prosser received 55% of the vote compared to Kloppenburg’s 25%.

This election should not be close. Somebody is pulling strings. If Kloppenburg wins, elections no longer have any meaning in this country.

I do not blame the Dems; their job is to win. The same is true of Republicans. Politicians will do what politicians do. I hold the press responsible. They know full well what’s going on. Yet their coverage overwhelmingly favors Democrats in all things. By it, they tilt the playing field. And who controls the press? Who has all the money in the world to grease the skids with carrot juice and sticks? Why it’s lefty George Soros, of course.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Silver Linings

You know as well as I do that any Republican frontrunner daring to show themselves as such will be trounced by the press. It’s a small wonder that anybody is even willing to call themselves ‘Republican’ anymore. Obama sits in the catbird seat. He has academe, the media and the unions running interference while he plays golf. Meanwhile Republicans are getting their heads handed to them – not by Democrats, but – by their own, for not being able to turn things around on a dime after years of cumulative mismanagement.

We foresaw this strategy and it works. In Obama’s last news conference, he blamed Republicans for forcing the insipid CR dance without mentioning that it was his and his Democrat majority’s failure to pass a budget in the first place. Every unpleasantness from now on will be blamed on Republicans and they will continue to accept the premise while insisting on playing by Queensberry Rules. This puts them in a similar position as the Libyan rebels - their backs to the wall.

Republicans fear Damocles’ sword too much. It is an illusion of their own creation. As government shut down looms like a puffy white cloud, clouds will be clouds and their silver linings will split the darkness equally. Yet, GOP leadership appears prepared to do practically anything to avoid it. Even though some are now saying this is exactly what has to happen. No chance of Republicans not taking the blame. That much is understood. Still, it would show some spine.

Voters are well aware of what happened in Wisconsin. They have identified the players and have taken sides. It is now up to Republicans to decide whether or not they want to take up the fight of saving the country in earnest or remain satisfied with making only symbolic gestures.
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On a previous thread I mentioned the gruesome murder of members of the Fogel family in Itamar. The Israeli government took the unusual step of releasing pictures of the carnage. Missing from these were pictures of what they had done to the woman. We can only imagine. I heard in passing that a memorial service is to be held in New York. It was said to have been organized by the ‘Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations’, Malcolm Hoenlein’s group. Stay tuned for details.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Hubris

As for the Cote d’Ivoire situation where the dictator, Laurent Gbagbo, is refusing to leave his palace after December’s election went against him being a model for modern dictators - including Kaddafi, Sale at Sa’ana, Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez among others - one name is never mentioned: Barack Hussein “gee, it would be easier to be president of China” Obama.

Instead, what our man-child president does is consistently seen in the abstract and labeled ‘inattention’, ‘inexperience’, ‘tough luck’, etc. Occasionally, some mainstream pundit will go so far as to lay our failings at the feet of ‘government’.

Largely ignored is what Obama has actually been doing to bring about our present state of malaise. ‘Ruling against the will of the people’ is frequently mentioned by the Tea parties as a catch-all; true enough, but is hardly worth much more than the adhesive on a bumper sticker. How about our illustrious president deciding which laws to enforce or not? Now we’re getting into specifics. But who is it who would rap a stick across Barack’s knuckles and tell him to stop doing that? How about signing clearly unconstitutional legislation, breaking treaties, governing by fiat through unaccountable czars and agencies? How about lying, deliberately damaging our economy; engaging in crony capitalism; encouraging dissent; overriding legislative customs, rules and procedures; ignoring judicial rulings; laundering money; propagandizing? The list goes on and on…

The voters of Wisconsin speak and elect a conservative governor. The White House inserts itself into Wisconsin politics and brings the state to a chaotic halt. Ditto, Arizona. Now there is a concerted effort to recall duly elected representatives for casting ‘wrong’ votes. No doubt, the White House is 100%behind it. How long before the WH threatens lawmakers' wives and kids? How long before lawmakers are intimidated and called incendiary names as in the case of ‘dead man Walker’?

All these are signs of a government that is out of control. In Japan, a nuclear power station blows up. Death and devastation are not necessarily immediate. It’s cumulative over time. We too are fast running out of options. So much has happened already under this president. It’s made us all but immune to the particulars. Many have awoken, but now throw up their hands. What will it take for the rest to wake up? A stolen election? Some kind if national calamity? Or will it finally sink in only in 2013 when we find that Obama is president yet again?

‘Hubris’ comes immediately to mind. It’s a good word with a rich history, coined by the Greeks. Look it up; or look it up again even if you think you know what it means. It would be well for us to learn how to recognize it, because it’s about to engulf us.

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Mt. Kailash: Shiva's Holy Abode

Mt. Kailash in Tibet is said to be a holy place. It is not very high, but no one has ever climbed it. Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Bon come to walk around it instead. As single circuit of 32 miles is said to cleanse one of all one’s sins of this life; 108 circuits guarantees nirvana; and a frigid bath in nearby Mansarovar Lake is said to take away the sins of one’s previous lives as well.

Kailash is located near the source of some of the longest rivers in Asia. Hindus believe it to be the abode of Lord Shiva. It is a forbidding place where the air is thin and hard on the lungs. Pilgrims - especially the old - sometimes die in the course of their Pradakshina (or circumambulation).

Such deaths never make the news because they are primarily solitary events - attempts by individuals to strike a peace with their Maker. When people rise up in significant numbers in revolt, however, the mighty take notice and begin to shake in their boots. They either flee or meet the challenge head-on with threats and bullets.

The odds right now are in favor of Kaddafi winning over the rebels. These will continue to fight on with whatever means they have available. They have put their young lives on the line. Years of selective oppression have brought them to this point of desperate decision. Inspired by the various uprisings in neighboring states, they know it’s now or never.

Contrast this with the protesters at Wisconsin’s state capitol. Many were bussed in from elsewhere (like Zimbabwean mercenaries) to shout slogans and carry signs. They’ve trashed the premises to the tune of sums. They’ve managed to disrupt the orderly flow of representative governance for weeks on end on the slender basis of some ideological throw-back currently promoted by the president of these United States. It’s no more than a Hollywood casting call for the idle, framed by the marble walls of a grand old capitol, unsupported by what ever drops off the relatively narrow journalistic frame. Their signs tell the story of feigned outrage and unlikely connections. They are there simply because a free nation allows it without consequence.

I note that the signs in the video above are all handmade and not designed to play to movie audiences. The blood that is bound to stain them is real - not Taco Bell sauce or Nathan’s mustard. Wisconsin’s demonstrators represent nothing but rent-a-mob thrills.

All the worlds major religions define sin within the context of something that was actually done. Inattention and ignorance therefore do not qualify as sin. While Libya’s rebels still stand a chance of salvation, not even Kailash could cleanse Wisconsin’s rabble of their stain.

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America: Not For Profit

There have been calls for revolution right here in America. Most prominently such calls have recently been heard at the protests in Wisconsin‘s state capital. Neither did the oft stated comparison to Egypt’s revolution escape public notice.

As in a series of strokes, first symptoms are seldom recognized as dangerous. Our first rattling of the cage came with the election of Barack Hussein Obama. We’ve been in revolution mode ever since. It’s reached a point where a counter-revolution is now building: the Tea Parties.

When Americans speak of revolution as pertains to their own country, it is difficult to determine what exactly they are talking about. ‘Revolution’ has become a sort of shorthand for ‘change’ popularized in 2008 during Obama’s election bid. Back then, it essentially meant nothing. Change would happen no matter which candidate were to be chosen. Bush was no longer on the ballot after all.

Perhaps, revolution can be identified as ‘accelerated change'. No doubt, this is what we got with Obama. Few would have envisioned how much this administration would be able to accomplish in just two short years. In the process, it has managed to bludgeon any number of sacred cows. (We’ve already gone through the list dozens of times.) These are now screaming to high heaven.

What we are seeing now can perhaps more properly be termed ‘civil war’. Revolution always comes first. With Obama’s election in the history books, the revolution is effectively behind us. Conventional wisdom has it that those best organized tend to come out on top (in a revolution). The American Left was far better organized than the Right, evidenced by the Left winning hands down.

Conservatives may be late to the dance, but they are organizing. There are other factors, of course, that will determine the ultimate result. Of these, enthusiasm may be the most potent. It can gather itself into real momentum. Momentum can only be temporarily halted by ‘organized’ force.

And this is where we find ourselves today. With the media being on the lam, it’s hard to tell at the moment which side will ultimately prevail. Libya is far easier to predict. Kaddafi will use all he has to quell the uprising. Unlike other Middle Eastern tyrants, he must have been planning for this eventuality all along. It won’t be pretty.

Any outside help offered to his regime will be handsomely rewarded. No doubt Russia and others are considering it. We have already stated publicly that we will not make any move that could be construed as an attempt to profit. This makes us unique among nations; and is yet another indication of the direction in which our own revolution is headed.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

A Jumble of Nine

It has become easy to connect the dots in the Middle East. We already see the outlines of the end game. Michael Vlahos is right when he says that underlying it all “is a search for dignity”. I did not hear the show but, I assume, he did not go so far as define ‘dignity’ as seen from the Islamic perspective.

At the same time, we refuse to connect the dots here at home. Most conservative pundits and political hopefuls openly state that our nation cannot survive another six years with Obama at the helm. What they really mean to say is ‘two’ (years). Most do not yet connect the chaos in the Middle East with the chaos in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Yet, clearly, the demonstrators themselves have made the connection. Their talk and signage shows that they are keenly aware of what’s happening in the Middle East and are in solidarity with it.

Last week marks the first time a major, nationally known politician raised the ‘I’ word in an interview with Newsmax TV. He did it in a sort of circumspect way, suggesting if President Sarah Palin had done what Obama did (re: DOMA), there would be immediate calls for her impeachment. Then, immediately backing off, he went on to say that, in Obama’s case, calls for impeachment are not warranted.

So, which is it Newt? Is it the old sock-in-the-mouth double standard again? With talk like that Newt cuts his own throat. And DOMA is not the only issue on which Obama finds himself on thin ice - constitutionally speaking. And that’s not even the sum of it. Look at where we are today domestically as well as internationally. Are we really better off now than when Bush left office? Or is the calliope crashing as we watch? Do we have a Plan B, or C, or D…? Or has what we are seeing been Plan A all along?

Come on Newt! You can do better than that. Say it like it is and then stick to it come hell or high water. Show some spine!

Kudos for getting the word out there, anyway. Hopefully, it’ll get the ball rolling (even though we all know that it won’t be you to roll that ball).

Here’s a prediction: The first one who owns the ball and takes charge of it wins. If no one is willing to do this much, then we’re even worse off than I thought we were.

How many glossed-over low blows will it take before we lose all appreciation of four corners (as in a ring)? How long before the number ’8’ becomes just another meaningless cipher among a jumble of nine?

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

A Short History of Travel

In the beginning is always the word. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, the public debate is between asking “is it fair (who defines ‘fair‘?)?” and “can we afford (who defines ‘afford‘?) it?” For those who claim we can’t afford it, ‘fairness’ is not an issue. For those who hold fairness above all, affordability is a moot point: Two trains passing in the night. There can never be agreement or compromise. These trains cannot be allowed to use the same track. Otherwise… disaster.

But still, it must have started somehow; when we were still united in the effort to find equitable solutions; when the 36 x 48 architectural paper was still in tubes, and we were still in the process of sharpening our pencils.

Back then the issue, as it presented itself, was simply getting from here to there, and back again. At first, the ‘back again’ part presented a problem. There was nothing we could not solve. So, it was decided, we should build two parallel tracks. Now there’s a solution!

Now we find that ‘here’ and ‘there’ are two separate places (as they had been all along); that people going there want this, and people coming here want that; and that the two would never compromise. You see, there is just enough to build one set of tracks. What to do?

Are any of us into derailing trains? Has it already reached the point, as it did during WWII, when the French resistance found it necessary to dig up tracks without telling anybody? Hell, you can go even further back and watch Buster Keaton’s “The General”!

History repeats. In the beginning there is always the word. From then on it can get confusing. One has to be nimble; one has to be quick to keep up. Our side is learning, but we are still way behind the curve. While we were busy lazing about - distracted - the Left was studying hard; working. Nobody thought, it’d ever get this far: the blurring of boundaries, identities (everyone the same, interchangeable); the blurring of truth; the blurring of meaning, of thought; two objects spinning independently in space: Farrakhan’s mother wheel (ship) and its anchor - tracking further and further apart.

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Governor Scott Walker: Not Intimidated

Wisconsin is the clearest indication yet of a game that has been unfolding for some time. The object of the game is to win. Thank God, in Scott Walker we have a governor who is intent on winning this battle! He seems not to be about kicking the can down the road; he is not easily intimidated; and he appears to remain focused on the job at hand despite threats and ungainly public displays (by vocal minorities).

This drama is bound to repeat itself in other state capitols as well. It’s good that this happened first in Wisconsin where, I predict, Walker will win in the end.

The game pits public service unions against taxpayers. Any reasonable observer must know that, in our system, the taxpayer cannot simply be shunted aside. States, unlike the federal government, cannot print money to gloss over fiscal carelessness. The good health of the private sector taxpayer remains essential to the good fiscal health of the state. Inequities must be addressed.

Democrats, their union supporters and welfare clients, continue to be ill informed about basic economic principles. They seem equally ill informed about the job they were hired to do. Teachers, for instance, are supposed to teach our children. I suspect that most are trying to make an honest go of it, but are constantly undermined by a bureaucracy whose only aim in life is to fleece the public, protect its turf, and promote agendas. In essence, you have the tail wagging the dog. Despite all the money spent, Wisconsin’s record of achievement in public education remains far from exemplary.

Democrats, too, seem uninformed about the basics of the democratic process. As such, elections mean nothing to them. They are quite willing to block any legitimate legislative process by outlandish tricks. We’ve seen the same on the federal level.

It struck me today that I’m not in the habit of counting my change before sticking it in my pocket. I realized that’s because it never made much difference to me. Now I wonder how many times I’ve been cheated; how much money I might have thrown away in this fashion over the course of a lifetime? Had I ever had to budget carefully (as most do), I might not have been so flippant.

Our governments have been doing the same. They’ve played fast and loose with our money for years. Now, suddenly, the wolf is at the door. A million here, a million there - it all adds up when you no longer have a million.

Wisconsin represents an important milestone in the fight to return to some semblance of fiscal sanity. There’s a minority among us who do not agree that this has now become important. They may be ignorant; or, they might well believe themselves to be operating under a system that has not yet been adequately explained. A third possibility is that they are deliberately trying to collapse our existing system and create chaos.

No matter who ultimately wins in Wisconsin, at least one thing will be clear: the players on both sides have had to show their faces. POTUS has demonstrated a definite preference. Might this not also explain our current approach to foreign policy?

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Lions And Ducks And Bears

The Middle East is burning. Protests spreading in Libya; protests spreading in the Middle East and beyond. Once the cat is out of the bag, everything becomes unpredictable. In Libya, the prize is light crude. Many nations - especially in Europe - depend on it. Oil prices rising everywhere - affecting everything. Someone in Libya shouts, “Where is America? Where is the UN? This is a massacre! We need help. Now!”

They don’t ask for Chinese intervention. They don’t ask for Russia - or Europe. They ask for America. An automatic reflex.

“Sorry guys, you’re on your own. We’ve got our own insurrection to deal with. Wisconsin. And it’s spreading to other states.“

“But what about the oil? We’ll pay!”

“Sorry again, guys. We don’t need your oil. We’re ’green' now. Don’t you see? We’re green. Oil is a cancer. We’re trying to choke it off. We’ve got windmills, batteries, solar panels - and mercury light bulbs. Besides ….besides what?

“While we may have started all this mess with the likes of Google, Facebook and the unions, it’s out of our hands now.”

Kaddafi is toast. He burnt us once too often. No sympathy for that dictator. He’s fresh out of IOU’s - and so are we. The rest will fall in place after the dust has settled. Blame it on Israel.
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In the center of the town, opposite the station, is the village green. There, right in the middle, is a pond. The family often goes there to feed the ducks after dinner with the bread that’s left over.

Dad says, “Look kids! They’re over there.” And the kids run over to where they are.

When the parents catch up with them, mother remarks, “My, how they’ve grown!”

Dad is unsure whom she’s referring to - the children or the ducks - and says nothing. When their bags are empty, the children are anxious to leave.

“Say good-bye to the ducks,” Mom says.

“They’re not ducks,” chime the children in unison.

“What are they then,” asks Mom.

“Bears,” say the children.

Mom and Dad laugh. They think it’s cute. From then on, the family refers to the ducks floating silently on the surface of their own reflections on the village pond as ‘bears‘.
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Later that year, the county proposed a bear hunt to cull the sloth that’s become a nuisance to garbage cans and pets. There were so many people against it that the idea was scrapped.

Mom mentions it one evening to Dad. “They’ve banned duck hunting,” she says.

Dad looks up from his paper. He seems annoyed. He liked to go duck hunting with his friends - in season, of course. “What’s wrong with duck hunting?” he exclaims.

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On The Verge of America's Third Revolution

Listening to Aaron Klein’s radio show today, I learned that Muslim student associations routinely recite the Muslim pledge of allegiance at their meetings on school grounds. This seems odd to me. While other religious organizations are often barred from holding meetings (on school grounds), the Muslim students seem to be getting away with it. It is not unusual for any organization to have a motto, pledge or mission statement. While most are relatively benign in content, the Muslim pledge sounds overtly seditious (to me). They are openly calling for the overthrow of the United States (and capitalism), pledging to give their very lives to their quest for global domination.

Why is Homeland Security not investigating these groups? Why is it that every other group (Tea Parties, veterans groups, the Boy Scouts, Catholics, etc.) is quick to raise suspicions within our Homeland Security apparatus while Muslim groups are given a free pass? (And I still don’t have an answer as to why Muslim women are not subject to mandatory airport pat-downs.) Can anyone still say ‘double standard‘? ‘Inexperience‘? ‘Incompetence on the part of our leadership‘? Or is it treason?

While every other religion is shunned, ridiculed and shamed into pulling in its horns under a policy of ‘separation of church and state’, only Islam faces no legal or societal roadblocks. In fact, as a nation we seem to roll over and play dead to any Islamic demand.

The answer is so obvious, it almost seems superfluous to articulate it. America has become a Muslim nation. It happened when we elected Barack Hussein Obama to be our supreme leader. The rest of the world knows this. If we could accept the fact that this has happened, we would begin understand a whole lot of things that have escaped our reason since the day our current president was sworn in without a Bible: from his refusal to show his birth certificate, to what is going on in the Middle East, to Wisconsin.

All the money we have poured into the Middle East for oil appears to have bought them our media, our major institutions, and even our government. Does anyone seriously think that they will ever let go of it? The second American revolution is already in the rearview mirror. It happened while we were sleeping. The sooner we wake up, the sooner can America’s third revolution begin.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Dignity

Last night, the wind blew some tiles off the roof. I always wake up when one of them crashes and shatters. And I realized why the gambling house always wins; why Obama will ultimately be regarded as America’s savior. Why? Because he, perhaps more than any other man, has brought us face to face with our own mortality.

Saw “Import/Export” last night - a German film by Ulrich Seidl. It’s the kind of film best seen locked on fast-forward. As far as films go, there was something fundamentally wrong with it. It traced the lives of two young people from different parts of Europe - a man and a woman - struggling to survive. It was winter and the prospects for both looked pretty bleak. So much of what most of us take for granted, they didn’t have, like running water for instance.

The girl ends up in Germany which is only marginally better for her since she bears the legacy of communism and all its implications. The boy, Austrian, ends up working for his father in what was once referred to as 'die Ost-Zone'. Their lives never intersect.

Wisdom, knowledge, religion, grace, talent, skill - all are like mental jewelry. Any one of these takes years to nurture and develop. If conditions are right, they can mature into something far more precious than material wealth. We, here in America, have a better than even chance at all of it. There are people in other countries who don’t. In the past, they’ve looked west for a chance to earn what passes for human dignity. Some fall short, of course. They bring too much baggage along with them.

I look at my own children. They are adults now. Having made no serious mistakes to weigh them down, they are thriving as much as can be expected under current circumstances. But more than any of that, it is dignity that props them up. Dignity is the foundation of any successful endeavor. Without it, we remain stunted.

In the past few days, I’ve heard Wisconsin compared to Egypt. The people who say this have no clue. Our revolution (if you want to call it that) has nothing in common with what Egyptians are fighting for. Our grievance is a mere temper tantrum compared to theirs. Whereas we can go back to our homes and eat a good dinner after a day of marching and waving banners with pictures of Hitler and Che; they have nothing to come home to but begging, hoping that their bloodlust (which often masquerades as salvation) will sustain them another day.

Our tradition of individual dignity is at peril. It’s the only thing that’s held our noses above water for so many years. Obama has shown us that dignity’s fabric has frayed; that it may tear under stress if not properly repaired and maintained; that we may find ourselves chilled to the bone and huddling together like farm animals in a draughty barn; that the path downward is infinite, and that we have only just begun our descent.

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We've Dug Deep Enough

Interesting architecture to the spin coming out of the Middle East (as the region burns). At first, it was Tunisia. Then Tunisia was faulted for what happened in Egypt; then, Tunisia was all but forgotten and Egypt became the fault for what’s happening in Bahrain; and so it goes on and on: the incident previous to the last one is conveniently forgotten with the aim of burying the source of the agitation. It’s very much like our housing collapse was explained to us.

Also, Israel is hardly ever mentioned; neither is Islam. POTUS is said to be unaware and unprepared. There’s no indication that he even knows that the 5th Fleet is anchored in Bahrain - or cares.

How can he not care? How can he not know? Ask such questions and you soon stumble upon the source of it all. He knows full well. He cares a lot - but not in the way we care. Despite all those exotic names that Americans can no longer pronounce or locate on a map, the real target in all this is the U.S. and, of course, Israel.

The script was hatched in the White House and it’s global in nature. It involves everything from Pakistan to Arizona and now Wisconsin. The plan is still unfolding, perfectly coordinated. There are no surprises for those in the know.

Look all that’s happened in the past two years since Barack Hussein Obama has been in office: the economy tanking; our foreign policy in disarray; people out in the streets protesting; our states insolvent; immigration out of control; our system of governance unresponsive to the public’s demands; jobs vanishing; oil and food prices spiking; etc. I suppose we can always blame it on Bush - or George Washington.

The ride to hell is infinite. We’ve already blown by any number of major milestones. (The passage of Obamacare was one. So was the sinking of the Cheonan.) We’ve been told to ignore all that. Who among us, looking at all this wreckage, can say we’ve turned the corner? Who can honestly say things are improving; that America is scoring points? Every day we’re treated to a new and ominous reality. Every day we dig ourselves deeper. Enough with the shovel-ready jobs already! We’ve dug deep enough.

It is an accident of destiny? I maintain it’s not. And we’d better start calling a spade a spade.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

To Live Another Day

All this is entirely self-evident. Taxation inhibits economic activity. That’s why one sees the flight of people and businesses from high tax states to lower tax states. As jobs and money flee, the tax base shrinks, resulting in less money flowing into government coffers. It’s difficult to understand why this concept is so difficult to grasp for some people.

‘Democrat ex-legislators’ have just sealed Illinois’ fate. It is not hard to figure out what will happen next. “Wisconsin, here we come!”

Unless, of course, Illinois is so progressive, they feel they are not subject to economic consequences. They would first and foremost blame the economy in general - the loss of jobs (new norm) overall, due to whatever - without necessarily understanding what the word ’economy’ actually means. They would further argue that what is quite obvious in ordinary household budgeting becomes counter-productive when applied to a macro model where increased government spending and higher taxes are the ultimate solution. They would have plenty of company in support of that view from the likes of Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, to many in the halls of Congress, and in Democrat-controlled State legislatures.

Even more ominously looms the casual wholesale dismissal of economic principles overall; the view that it is and never has been about fiscal policy; that the whole purpose of the exercise is to make things ‘fair’ by re-distributing wealth.

Our current administration has been mounting an all-out campaign to criminalize achievement. Wealth is regarded as some kind of unpardonable stain - and, to some extent, the class warfare narrative has taken hold. If successful, metrics to actually measure economic success or failure would cease to exist. Only one thing would stand in the way of fully implementing the program: neighboring states or countries in which capitalism actually works.

That is why these too have to be destroyed by Federal rules and regulations. It is why Israel cannot be allowed to survive, and why America cannot remain as she once was.
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Read an article this morning in the WSJ by John Eibner and Charles Jacobs, entitled, “Will Freedom Come for Sudan’s Slaves?” about a country that is about to be split in two. Among a whole host of outrages, slavery is still practiced in northern Africa. It is of the most brutal and degrading sort, vividly detailed here.

Earlier this week, I saw a clip of a debate on France 24 about the kidnapping and murder of French citizens in Niger. And yet, we keep our condemnation close to our vests. At no cost must we insult Islamic extremists. They are noble savages, after all. Easier to turn against ourselves and become like them. It is now clear that they won’t necessarily like us any better if we do; but, at least, they’ll presumably no longer be tempted to come across to our shores to raise holy hell. We who have far less experience in the art of intimidation and physical brutality may yet live another day.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/