BITS AND PIECES

It has occurred to me that I haven't taken any shots at the Republicans in quite a while. Well, there are a couple of good reasons. First, the Reps have become completely inert. Oh, they bitch and moan and try their level best to be obstructionists, but truth be told, they have about as much power as a AAA battery. Maybe less. The Democrats are in total control and pushing their agenda hard. Frankly, punching up the Republicans right now is like kicking a midget- a little too easy. Secondly, the Democrats have been doing sooooo many things to comment on I can't even keep up. So here's a little mash-up of some recent events that caught my eye.

*Digging the hole even deeper*

President Obama announced yesterday that he will be sending even more troops into Afghanistan. It was a mistake to stay this long and it'll be an even bigger mistake to stay longer. I sympathize with the President on this one. His supporters want us out, his Generals want us in with both feet. Both have some great points. The fact is; we can't separate the good guys from the bad over there. Left on their own the Afghan people turn to infighting and the brutal Taliban take over. It's seems easier to me to let them form training camps or control apparatus and then blow the living crap out of them. But I'll admit, I'm not a military analyst. This war is fast becoming Obama's War and I'm dead positive he will regret taking ownership.

*She left us!*

Our beloved Governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, has just gotten back from a State dinner with President Obama for India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife, Gursharan Kaur. Ms. Granholm feasted on an "elaborate array of vegetarian dishes and listened to the National Symphony Orchestra" while her state is trying to figure out how to feed itself. I just got back from a trip up north deer hunting and I have never seen the area around Alpena look so desperate. Locals told me the deer population is way down due to starvation-of the residents. She reminds me of that scene in Jurassic Park where the T-rex rears it's head (Michigan's debt and economy) over the embankment and the lawyer takes off running leaving the kids to die. Thanks Jennifer. I guess as long as she's having elegant food and company and can jockey for a better position it's O.K.. The local press seems more concerned about her attire, but I want to know what the F*** she's doing partying while our state is burning. I'm sure some Liberal can give me the apologetic answer.

*Even more local*

Of all the things I miss the most about the old days, it's accountability. Why, it used to be that if you got caught stealing a penny bubblegum from the drug store (Wow, I sounded old there.) you could end up working for that same store for a month, mandated by your parents. Now, you can be in a position to oversee the entire Michigan Education system and watch $306 million vanish from the Detroit Public Schools and know one says a peep. Here's a lesson for all you "Reform Wall Street" types-laws and bureaucracy don't do one lick of good if the people paid to watch them aren't accountable for when they fail to stop the stealing. Everyone acts like we don't have anyone that was supposed to be watching that Den of Thieves in Detroit, but we do. It's called the Michigan State Board of Education and it's headed by one gray-haired old lady named Kathleen N. Straus. If we're not going to do a single thing to the department that is paid to watch the school system when they fail to do their job, then what's the point of having them? So they can make sure our kids know how to put a condom on while the superintendents sell off their computers? Sigh.

*Willie Horton II*

During the 1988 Presidential campaign, Democrat candidate Michael Dukakis was plagued by ads run by Republican George H.W. Bush showing a young man named Willie Horton. On October 26, 1974, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Horton and two accomplices robbed Joseph Fournier, a 17-year-old gas station attendant, stabbing him 19 times. Mr. Fournier later died of his injuries. Mr. Horton was convicted and sent to prison. On June 6, 1986, he was released as part of a weekend furlough program but did not return. On April 3, 1987 in Oxon Hill, Maryland, Horton twice raped a local woman after pistol-whipping, knifing, binding, and gagging her fiancé. The furlough program was supported by candidate Dukakis. The style and underlining racial theme of those ads is often pointed to as examples of racism by the Republican Party. Now, a new play on that old script is emerging. Maurice Clemmons, who is black, performed a teenage crime spree in Arkansas that landed him an 108-year prison sentence. He then had his sentence commuted by Republican Presidential Candidate and Talk show host Mike Huckabee who was Arkansas's' Governor at the time. Mr. Clemmons went on to kill four white police officers in cold blood. Now, strangely, even the most Liberal Media sources have no problem showing Maurice's photo next to the four white cops. It should be very interesting to see how this will play out if Mr. Huckabee decides to run in 2012.

O.K., that's all my blood pressure can take for now. It sure is a burden having to point out week after week what our press seems unwilling, or unable to do. Fortunately, I live for this. H.C.

$12,000,000,000,000.00

Quietly, without much fanfare, (barely anyone even mentioned it in the Main Stream Media) our National Debt hit $12 trillion dollars last week. I guess they were too busy covering Adam Lambert's cancelled show. (That search uncovered hundreds of stories)

CBS was one of the very few sources to do any writing on it at all and that was only in a blog written by CBS News White House correspondent.Mark Knoller. Mr. Knoller had this to say,"The National Debt has increased about $1.6 trillion on Mr. Obama's watch, though less than $4.9 trillion run up during the presidency of George W. Bush. But the White House budget review issued in August projects that by the end of the current fiscal year on Sept 30th, the National Debt could top $14 trillion. It gets worse. The same document projects that by the end of the decade, the National Debt will hit $24.5 trillion -- exceeding the Gross Domestic Product projected for 2019 of $22.8 trillion." That's $1.6 trillion that Obama and his Californication Dems have spent in just slightly less than a year. I guess that's just not big enough news compared to an Adam Lambert story.

I would say that the Obama Administration is spending like drunken sailors-but that would be an insult to drunken sailors who couldn't spend $1.6 trillion if every single one of them were drunk their entire lives.

While it's true that Bush (hardly a fiscal conservative) ran up considerable debt over his 8 years, his $4.9 trillion will be dwarfed by an eight year total for Obama of $12.8 trillion at his current rate of spending. And keep in mind, that doesn't even include the bill for the Health Care overhaul. Also, included in Bush's total is the Medicaid part "B" prescription benefit and the TARP funds, most of which are also being spent by the Obama Administration. To get a real grip on how outlandish this is all becoming, check out the U.S. debt clock which is literally spinning out of control.

Why this isn't being covered better, I'll let all of you try to figure out. However, to keep the younger readers in my crowd from committing suicide over the debt we are passing along to them, I'll end this piece on a positive note. Even Obama can't escape the wrath of the comedians forever and SNL has finally broken from the MSM and is no longer punching with furry mittens. H.C*UPDATE* These vids keep getting removed, so I will reload them as quickly as I can find new ones. NBC is claiming copyright infringement, but I find it interesting that only select vids (like this one) are removed.

DEFINING TERRORISM

To take the simple approach, one would just look in the dictionary or on-line to find a definition of terrorism. Here, I'll save you the trouble, Webster's on-line dictionary defines terrorism as; The systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. That's simple enough. However, as the recent Fort Hood Shooting has shown us, that definition needs a little more explaining. When does a nut-job with a gun or a bomb become a terrorist? Does he have to follow a religion? Can he be a terrorist in his own country? What's the difference between someone who's fighting to free his country from oppressors and a Patriot? Can a country itself practice terrorism? Where are the lines?

These are all questions that need answers. To help you sort these questions out I've decided to take a stab at how I would define an act of terror and what makes a terrorist.

First and foremost, I would say that every terrorist has one main thing in common. They target civilians. Notice that I italicized "target". There is a big difference between a military action that has non-targeted civilian collateral deaths and someone who blows up a shopping mall. Israel is a good example of a country that walks the fine line between the two. If Hamas attacks from within civilian housing, is it fair for Israel to blow up suspected houses knowing good and well that innocent civilians will be killed? I would say "Yes". That line, however, I believe, is crossed the minute Israel is trying to enact punishment on the Palestinian people without specifically targeting a known terrorist house. If it's a policy of "If Hamas kills five Jews, then Twenty-five Palestinians will die.", then I believe it is state-sponsored terrorism by Israel. As long as the terrorists themselves put the civilians in danger to protect themselves, then Israel is justified to commit an act of war with civilian casualties. Remember, it is Hamas that put them in danger.

But is Hamas, or for that matter any one else, a terrorist organization if they believe that they are fighting a guerrilla war with an occupier? This can get a little more complicated. First, to be fighting for the liberation of your country, in my opinion, you have to have the support of the majority of your people. Without that, every group, no matter how small, can justify attacking their country in the name of "patriotism". Civilized society allows civil decent, it does not allow every fringe group that disagrees with some policy to act out violently. The proper function of a patriot group is to persuade it's people to rise up against a government it believes has gone wrong. That group must convince a majority of people that it is right. It is the function of an oppressive government to limit demonstration and free expression. It is through those actions that they prove that they no longer have the majority of the people behind them and are no longer acting in the interest of it's people. If you are a member of a group that believes in changing it's government, has free expression, access to media, and the right to demonstrate peacefully and still cannot convince the majority of the public to get behind you, then your job is to continue to try to convince more people. You are not justified to use acts of terrorism to get your way.

Can a country be engaged in terrorism? This is the argument used by Liberals to defend the actions of people who feel, or even are, oppressed by some of the bigger, more powerful countries in the world. The truth is; they are sometimes right and most times wrong. Countries have opposing goals that are interlocked by limited resources, land, water, religion, past conquests, sketchy borders, regional conflicts and a host of other problems. War is the solution of choice for a lot of these countries. To assume that diplomacy and negotiation is always the solution is naive at best. Oppression is always the badge worn by anyone that doesn't get their way or loses the conflict. Since one side or the other will eventually win and get their way, the other side is always oppressed in their own opinion. This in and of itself cannot justify terrorism. Oppression, however, can take many forms, some inhumane and brutal, some economic and far more sublime. The ones that are brutal or inhumane will surely be easy to rally the opinion of the people against and terrorism I believe is justified in that instance. The lesser "oppression" is far harder to justify with violence unless the majority of the people are persuaded.

The world as we now know it has been a little too quick to slap the word "terrorism" on any action by an oppressed group that acts out against it's more powerful oppressors. The keys to separating these people from true terrorists is in their actions. Do they have the support of the majority of their own people and are they acting in their own country? If so, they aren't terrorists in my world. If they are targeting civilians in another country and if they haven't the support of the people in the country they're attacking, then they are terrorists. This may seem a little over simplistic, and maybe it is a simple answer for a very complex question. But I have applied this philosophy to a lot of situations and it seems to work far better than webster's definition. If any one has some input they would like to contribute, this is one discussion I would like to further flesh out. H.C.

LET THE PARTY FLIPPING BEGIN

As I said so many times after President Obama became our first black President and Congress became a solely Democrat run institution, "Enjoy your moment Democrats, it's not going to last."

Tuesday's elections in New Jersey and Virginia have proven my point. And trust me, there is a lot more to come. Most of my Democrat friends were dead-positive after the historic election of 2008 that the tide had surely moved in their favor. They were, of course, very mistaken. What they thought was a sea-change toward their way of thinking was simply the repercussions of the corruption on Wall Street and the downturn of the economy. The truth is; we live in a social conservative nation. The proof is everywhere. There are now 40 "Right-to-Carry" (a gun) states. 36 of them are "Shall Issue" states, meaning the state has to find a reason to deny your right to carry as opposed to you having to prove that you have a reason to need one. During that same period in time, twenty-nine states have enacted a constitutional ban restricting marriage to one man and one woman. Another 19 states have laws that ban gay marriage and limit marriage to one man and one woman (but it is not in their constitutions) Yet, for some unexplainable reason, all my gun enthusiast friends think they're losing the battle and my Gay friends think they're winning. I guess Liberals are just more optimistic (or delusional) and Conservatives are more pessimistic. Either way, they're both wrong.

As further proof of this, Virginia has now elected Republican Bob McDonnell for governor by a wide 18% margin.The McDonnell victory headlined a three-way sweep for the Reps of the top statewide offices in a state where Obama had won the Presidential election. New Jersey also changed sides by electing Republican Chris Christie over incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine by a 6% margin. To add even further loss to the Dem agenda, the State of Maine has now overturned it's Gay Marriage law. This was a particularly startling defeat for the Gay Rights activists, since it was on their own home turf. My advice to Gay Marriage proponents; stop trying to win in the courts instead of changing public opinion. People don't like shady tactics.

The only bright spot for the Dems came from the 23rd district of New York where Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative Party Member Douglas Hoffman. Note that I didn't say "Republican" Douglas Hoffman. That's because the Republican candidate dropped out. Mr. Hoffman was a 3rd Party Candidate and almost beat Mr. Owen anyway, losing by only 3% points. Even though the left tried desperately to claim this as a win against the Republicans, the truth is; he didn't have a "R" by his name.

Overall, I view this as a very good sign that the Reps are on the comeback trail. The Dems are finding out that it's a lot harder to lead than to just sit back and criticize. The history of our country is that we don't like Parties that lead from the far end of the political spectrum. The Dems are paying the price for the Californication of our government and it will come back to bite them. Turnovers in midterms elections are common and I predict we're going to see quite a few seats change hands in favor of the Reps. Sorry Dems, but I told you so. H.C.