Archive for March, 2011

Brett Noel

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David Karki

I know I’m probably tilting at windmills, but I’m going to see if I can decipher anything close to an understandable foreign policy from President Obama by comparing a list of Middle Eastern countries that have recently seen upheavals. We should also ask ourselves why we’ve seen so many in such a short time that all seem to follow a pretty similar pattern. I, for one, don’t think that’s merely coincidence.

Nor do I think Obama’s seemingly schizophrenic and incoherent positions are simply a result of a small man holding an office far too big for him – though that’s certainly a factor. There is more to it than that.

But first things first, a summary of the conflicts:

Afghanistan – The U.S. invaded after 9/11 since the Taliban had harbored the perpetrators and masterminds of that evil slaughter of nearly 3,000 innocents. Obama played this up during the 2008 campaign, so as to look tough while advocating surrender and withdrawal in Iraq. Now as president, Obama is making no real effort to live up to all that talk or to win or even accomplish any recognizable or definable goal. A country that had made some progress – considering that it had made none in its entire history since being part of the ancient Persian Empire, which is likely why the Taliban and Al Qaeda were so fond of it – could well slip back into that abyss. Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Calabrese

I’m not sure the story I’m about to tell you has the partisan twist you might want it to have. It’s been my experience that political operatives have an astounding capacity for stupidity that does not respect party lines.

But the idiots here work for Vice President Joe Biden, so make of it what you will.

According to a report by the UK’s Mail Online, Biden’s staff came up with a novel way to prevent an Orlando Sentinel reporter from speaking to guests at a political fundraiser before Biden arrived to speak. They locked him in a closet. Twice.

Reporter Scott Powers showed up at the home of developer Alan Ginsburg in Winter Falls, Florida, to cover speaking engagements by Biden and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. Because Powers arrived some 90 minutes before Biden and Nelson, Biden’s staff were concerned that Powers would mill around and talk to other guests, when the only thing they had agreed to let him do was cover the speeches.

So what to do with Powers? Hey, some genius suggested, let’s lock him in a closet.

Read the rest of this entry »

Herman Cain

In the early 1970s, America’s dependence on foreign oil was a little over 20 percent. Today, our dependence on foreign oil is over 65 percent. We have become more and more energy dependent because we have never had a serious energy independence strategy, and we still do not have one.

Energy independence is within our grasp because we have plenty of energy natural resources. We have billions of barrels of oil, plenty of natural gas reserves, more coal than any other country in the world, lots of places we could build dams for hydroelectricity and some of the safest nuclear power technology in the world.

Wind and solar energy development is not going to get us to energy independence. Studies such as the Department of Energy’s “Billion Ton Study” have shown that those two sources could at best provide 5 percent of our energy needs combined.

But by maximizing all of our other domestic energy resources, we could become energy-independent. This would not only help to keep down the cost of gasoline and the cost of nearly everything we buy, but it would also be a boost to our economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. But most importantly, energy independence would keep us from being vulnerable to the current instability in the Middle East or the whims of OPEC.

But to become energy-independent, we would have to reject the false premise that America’s high energy consumption is at odds with conservation, or that we will cause irreversible harm to our planet. To say that we will cause irreversible harm to the planet by using our natural resources responsibly is like saying that man never should have discovered fire in the first place.

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Liz Carter

. . . and then we’ll be your biggest consumer! Yes, Obama has once again demonstrated his desire to create jobs and opportunity around the world – I mean, anywhere but here, the United States.

Brazil must be thrilled to hear that Obama is concerned and committed to the future of the Brazilian energy industry.  Obama has pledged assistance with technology and support, because Brazil is sitting on a gold mine. Jobs will abound and Brazil is so lucky to have the commitment that when they are ready to start selling, the United States wants to be one of their best customers!

Democrats and Republicans agree that the president shouldn’t be, and doesn’t have to be, looking outside the United States for oil.

“President Obama didn’t have to go all the way to Brazil to find a ‘new, safe and stable’ source of oil,”  said Sen. Mark Begich, a Democrat representing an oil-rich state. “Energy opportunities are right here in Alaska.”

Of course they are. And not just there.

“We have abundant energy resources off Louisiana’s coast, but this administration has virtually shut down our offshore industry and instead is using Americans’ tax dollars to support drilling off the coast of Brazil,” Sen. David Vitter, a Republican representing Louisiana, said in a statement. “It’s ridiculous to ignore our own resources and continue going hat-in-hand to countries like Saudi Arabia and Brazil to beg them to produce more oil.”

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Brett Noel

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Dan Calabrese

The U.S. military action against Libya presents one of those situations in which political activists have to choose between the partisan points they want to make and the substantive position they should take.

If you look at it solely in terms of how the rhetoric is shaping up, conservatives have a pretty legitimate gripe. President Obama completely bypassed Congress in making the decision to launch airstrikes against Libya. By contrast, the reckless cowboy George W. Bush sought and received congressional authorization for his actions both in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

What’s more, the left-wing antiwar activists who demanded the impeachment of Hitler Chimpy McHalliburton are – with a few notable exceptions – silent on the matter of Obama’s actions.

Obama seems to be learning what Bush knew from the beginning – that sometimes U.S. action is necessary. Conservatives are enjoying Obama’s comeuppance to no end.

But there are two things at work here that conflict with one another, and if the term “loyal opposition” means anything at all, it should mean that the party out of power supports the success of the nation even if it means getting behind the president you oppose politically.

Read the rest of this entry »

Herman Cain

We have a crisis of crises in this country and some people continue to make the false claim that the Tea Party movement is racist, simply because many of us disagree with the policies of the Obama Administration. They also play the race card to try to dismiss President Obama’s leadership deficiencies.

Last week, a reporter asked me about some homemade signs at early Tea Party rallies, which were offensive toward President Obama and which quickly disappeared from subsequent rallies. But the reporter never mentioned the barrage of Bush-bashing by the liberals in the media who made it a sport when Bush was president.

When a black listener to my radio show finally figured out that I am an American Black Conservative (ABC) who disagrees with the failed policies of the Obama Administration, he did not call me a racist but resorted to calling me “shameless”, since I dared to disagree with our black president.

I pointed out to him that some black people can think for themselves, and that we all have a right to criticize our elected officeholders. You will notice that I did not refer to them as leaders. That would have been inaccurate.

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Brett Noel

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Dan Calabrese

I sort of like having David Brooks around. He serves as a living demonstration of a lot of troubling things. By the standards of the New York Times and much of official Washington, Brooks is supposed to be some sort of conservative. And that probably tells you everything you need to know about officialdom.

So when MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked Brooks the other day to make his case for why we should continue to give federal funding to public broadcasting, what could the elitist Mr. Brooks say? He couldn’t say there aren’t enough other choices, since there are thousands of them. He couldn’t defend NPR and PBS against the elitist charge, although, as an elitist himself, he probably has a hard time seeing the problem with that.

So he said this:

“Here’s the case: You know we have a common culture. If we’re going to assimilate people, if we’re going to be one nation – it helps to have a common culture. There’s some things that do join us. And government has some role in help creating those things, in funding the things that join us. The Smithsonian museums do some of that. I think public broadcasting with shows like ‘The American Experience,’ they give us all something to clue into our history. They join us as a people. They assimilate immigrants and it’s worth a very small amount, and you should see my paychecks – a very small amount that we pay to this.”

Got that? It doesn’t matter that you can get upwards of 1,000 different channels on cable or satellite, or that you can get hundreds of radio stations on XM/Siruis – not to mention your local broadcast stations. Apparently those hundreds and hundreds of offerings don’t effectively “assimilate” you into the “common culture” of America, as defined and approved by snobs like David Brooks.

To really get a sense of where he’s coming from, you need to read more David Brooks, but since you would rather scratch a chalkboard, I’ll sum it up for you. Brooks believes the major division in society today is not rich vs. poor, nor is it liberal vs. conservative, but rather the educated vs. the uneducated. Guess which group David Brooks likes!

So you, the great unwashed, watching wrestling, Dog the Bounty Hunter, Operation Repo or the very worst thing of all, Fox News Channel, David Brooks has a problem with you. See, we have a “common culture,” and it consists of things David Brooks approves of. Stuff you find in the Smithsonian. Stuff you hear at the opera. Not that gauche fair that you like!

Hey. Isn’t it worth $1.35 per household to do everything we can to turn a few more Americans into elitist snobs that David Brooks can relate to?