Archive for January, 2011

Brett Noel

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Bob Maistros

A funny thing happened on the way to the Republican State of the Union response last night:  the lovely and very talented Michele Bachmann.

Don't tread on ME, pal.

The House Tea Party Caucus Chair’s appearance as national spokeswoman for the grassroots movement – offering a rather unconventional and less than customary alternative to the usual GOP reply offered by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan – provided a sideshow far more fascinating than the main event, President Barack Obama’s continuing and credulity-straining efforts to feel his way to the political center.

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David Karki

Tonight’s State of the Union Address left no doubt – President Obama hasn’t the faintest idea of what the state of our union really is. Reality is simply not a thing with which he is either familiar or would recognize if it hit him square in the face. The (D) after his name might as well stand for delusional and dishonest, for how patently ridiculous and flat-out contradictory most of it was.

A five-year spending freeze? After he’s spent us $3 trillion more into debt, by definition left the spending spigot open to infinity with Obamacare, and then on top of that, goes on in this very same speech to demand trillions more spending? Er, I mean “investments.” (Wink, wink.)

Sending everyone to college? Not so long as they are badly overpriced cesspools of liberal brainwashing and indoctrination. And college is not for everyone nor is it by any means an entitlement.

Infrastructure neglected? Only because tree-hugging envirowackos block it all and public-sector salaries and pensions and health care and Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security are sucking up every last dollar like a black hole’s inescapable gravity well. Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Maistros

Greg Meyer – distance-running All-American, multiple world record-holder and last American male to win the Boston Marathon – made a powerful comparison to an overflow ballroom in Ann Arbor last Saturday night. A generation of football players can state with pride that they played for legendary University of Michigan coach Bo Schembechler, Meyer pointed out. And then added:  “The men in this room can say that they ran for Ron Warhurst.”

He was all about us.

Darn straight.  I’m one of the guys who can say that – in fact, I was with Greg on the first team led by the great Ronnie (we all called him that), who over his career coached 44 All-Americans and 12 Olympians before his retirement last summer.

Another of the outstanding athletes who paid tribute to Ronnie, Olympic bronze medalist Brian Diemer, asked rhetorically where our mentor came up with the famously tortuous workouts for which I served as one of the guinea pigs.  Well, I know.

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Herman Cain

In last week’s commentary I announced the formation of my presidential exploratory committee. The majority of the responses I have received have been very positive and encouraging, and the responses to the common sense solutions I have discussed at dozens of town hall style meetings have been outstanding.

They have this much political experience!

My focus at these meetings has been on strengthening our national security, unleashing the full growth potential of our economy, cutting government spending, modernizing our social programs, fixing our immigration problems and implementing a real energy independence strategy.

People have responded especially well to my approach to problem solving.

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Dan Calabrese

You are the president of the United States. You’re about halfway through your first term, and your party just lost control of Congress, in part because you’ve spent more money and run up bigger deficits than the world has ever seen.

So what are you going to propose in your first State of the Union address after this has happened?

It's on!

Spend more, baby!

That’s what the Wall Street Journal is reporting anyway. President Obama wants to keep the spending spigot engaged, with high water pressure, with a specific emphasis on three areas he argues are key to economic growth – education, infrastructure and research, particularly on the development of the so-called “clean energy sector”.

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Brett Noel

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Are our writers multitalented or what? The National’s Dacia Nichol, with help from her friend John Brodigan, pours out her heart in song for budget-slasher Paul Ryan.

David B. Livingstone

As any number of media outlets will be more than happy to inform you, it has now been 50 years since John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s inaugural address, and thus a full half-century since the utterance of the 17 words that might as well serve as the man’s epitaph: “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

Not really such a great question.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper anniversary without radio and television specials and a hardbound commemorative book, all featuring first-person I-was-there accounts and incisive commentary from leading thinkers all dutifully pronouncing the speech a masterpiece of 20^th Century oratory and a stirring call to service that re-awakened the consciousness and determination of a faltering nation.

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Dacia Nichol

In the interest of taking a breather from Earth reality, I’d like to opine about an issue that we haven’t really discussed with much passion in recent times outside of tragedy and love triangles: NASA.

What’s happening here?

Must you defund our souls?

Well, as it goes when all children grow up, it seems that we’ve moved on. Space is no longer a frontier for national pride. Oh, and we’ve been spending more time trying to get Russia back into Afghanistan than we did ensuring that they had their asses handed to them while they were there (as the Soviet Union). Basically, we don’t have ball to dress up for so we have to figure out how to make money on all the excess material we don’t need for fancy gowns anymore.

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