Without a Vengeance

August 2008 was the date of my last post here. I have to admit, it was a time of depression for me. Having completed both my Masters in Education and my certificate to teach in Tennessee public schools, I was unable to find full time employment. The elevation of BHO to messianic American Idol status and his certain victory only fueled that feeling of wandering in the wasteland of the lost and aged.

Since that time, however, I determined to continue to make an effort to effect change. I officially retired, began drawing early Social Security (for as long as it lasts) to augment my Navy pension and a small annuity payment earned from the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System earned from my years of school bus-driving and employment at the U of Memphis. I am, dear friends, financially dependent on taxpayers (a curious turn).

Additionally, I accepted a commission with Tennessee State Guard, sort of a Rotary operation on steroids. The idea is to provide the Governor a military force when the National Guard is sent abroad. I managed to work my way up to the post of Public Affairs Officer for the 24 county region served by the Knoxville-based 3rd Regiment. I'm responsible for finding opportunities to write press releases, coordinate media interaction and manage the website (http://tsg3.us).  Shameless plug.

I volunteer as the Verger for Trinity Episcopal Church in Gatlinburg.  For the benefit of the undereducated protestant in more evangelical denominations, a verger is a planner, scheduler and guide for those who serve during the worship. The verger coordinates the readers, crucifers, acolytes and lay eucharistic ministers for each service.  Look it up, Don.

With the accession of the false messiah to the White House, I have become increasingly politically active.  Worming my way into the publicity activities of the Sevier County Republican Party, I now hold the exalted position of Communications Director and member of the Executive Committee. I am committed to the overthrow of the Republican Party as it currently exists and replacing the country-club elitists in the leadership with committed constitutionalists.

So, having retired, I now have three jobs that keep me looking beyond myself and in service to the church and the community. There's nothing like serving others to take your mind off yourself and deflect feelings of inadequacy and self-pity.  Service is, I have found, the perfect cure for depression. I'm also involved in activities that prepare me for the big three events of the future: the eventual return of the actual Messiah, the next Great New Madrid Earthshake, and the election of November 2012.

This is not as good an effort as my first, but it gives the same information without the style.  The substance has been provided.  All that is missing is the elan of the first version.  I have learned my lesson.

Republicans for Obama?

This morning’s talk radio station in Knoxville featured an interview with the founder of a group called Republicans for Obama. They’ve got a website. Find it for yourself. I’d be embarrassed to link to it.

Republicans for Obama? That’s like Republicans for McCain. Neither represents the values of the Reagan Republicans who valiantly tried to overturn half a century of Democratic tax and spend policy.

Bush 41 never was the Reagan Republican he should have been. In fact, I believe he was fired after his one term because he wasn’t enough like Reagan. Most Americans wanted more Reagan and less of the Rockefeller Republicans that had dominated the GOP for all those years. GWB was elected primarily because the slim majority felt badly about firing his father.

The Republican Party has failed miserably in shrinking the government, reducing taxes and fulfilling the variety of other agenda items Reagan Republicans supported over the years. In an effort to become popular with the mainstream media, the Class of ’94 abandoned their Contract with American and sought, in the name of bi-partisanship, to get along with the Democrats. What happened is that the Democrats achieved their goals and the Republicans sacrificed everything. Thanks to this attitude of appeasement in the name of popularity, a la John McCain, the GOP allowed the nation to be maneuvered into this situation of fiscal disaster.

Republicans for Obama are mostly those who believe that things couldn’t get much worse. They take Obama’s words as solutions rather than looking at the solutions he proposes in the clear light of their effect on the population. Words like “unity,” “hope,” and “future” have lulled them into the belief that things will be wonderful with Obama in the White House, Pellosi in the House, and Harry Reid in the Senate. The reality of his ideas, tax hikes, redistribution of wealth and class envy won’t hold a candle to the emotional desire of RFOs that Americans should “come together.”

Here’s what will happen during an Obama presidency. Everybody, except those making less than $35,000 a year, will see their taxes go up. Prices will rise on every commodity as businesses pass on their higher taxes to consumers. Businesses will fold at an incredible rate as entrepreneurs fail to make payroll with increased minimum wage and tax requirements. The stock markets will plummet. The roles of the unemployed will skyrocket. Investments will come from overseas, increasing the control of American corporations by non-American entities. Open borders will insure the influx of more millions of under-educated aliens with no love for America. Welfare roles will soar, medical service providers will fold under the pressure to provide free services, and a general sense of despair will grip American citizens.

Obama wants to unite America. He will do so. We will all be united in our misery.

Where Have You Gone, Joe De Maggio?

My apologies to my variety of fans and supporters. Shortly after my last post I had to deal with my third heart attack and a simultaneous bout with pneumonia. My recovery was slow and I lacked the energy to blog, or do much else until recently.

The process of my education is now complete. As of December 2007, I am a certified teacher in Elementary Education with a Master's Degree in Education from Lincoln Memorial University. My hospitalization and recovery cause a one year delay in the completion process and allowed me to pursue the Master's. Now all I need is employment.

Education is a lot like real estate. Location, location, location! We have all heard the loud screaming for qualified teachers. Headlines blare that there just aren't enough teachers in the system to fill the demand. The demand, however, is large, urban, predominantly black, decrepit, and dangerous schools where only liberals with the idealistic vision of a social utopia would venture. There are plenty of teachers seeking employment among the various suburban or rural education facilities in more desireable locations, such as the Great Smoky Mountains regions of East TN and Western NC.

And so, I wait, networking to various principals, substituting when I can, proving my worth, and waiting for the next hiring cycle in March and April. Because I am otherwise idle, I find myself with the time and energy to make more regular contributions here. Like a bad penny that keeps turning up, or the poltergeist that simply won't be exorcised, I'm back!

Islam Goes Beyond the Pale, Again!

As if anyone needed more proof of the insanity engendered by Islam -- just look to the ruckus created by the publishing of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in certain satirical situations.

Christianity has managed to maintain a modicum of dignity in spite of the depiction of the Savior in a boxing ring on South Park. Islam could take note of the equanimity of a majority of Christians. We don't like it, but we don't burn down buildings and set fire to cars, etc. They're cartoons, for crying out loud. It sure isn't art!

The extremists (and there sure seem to be a lot of them) who are out to protect Islam from whatever event that gets them riled up would do well to spend as much energy venting against the brethren who give Islam an awful reputation by blowing up innocents.

Islam is not so much a dogma of peace and dignity as a canon looking for something to make them mad. "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad."

So, could the sinking of that ferry in the Red Sea be a little message from God expressing His almighty displeasure at the methods, means and message of Islam that seems to continually function from a position of rage, resentment and antagonism?

Idiocy on the Left

Nobody has taken Maxine Waters (D-CA) seriously for a long while. Now the lead kook of the kook fringe of the Democratic party has renewed calls for impeachment of the President.

Angry since Bush "stole" the presidency from Algore in 2000, this element of the Left simply wants that election, and the re-election of 2004 undone. Their concept is to put it back the way it should have been before the Supreme Court ruled that Florida could not continue to recount endlessly until the election came out the way the Dems wanted it.

Two elements stand in the way of an impeachment and removal from office. First, the House is loaded with enough Republicans that an order of impeachment is unlikely. Second, the facts will prevent the Republican majority in the Senate from finding the President guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors necessary for removal from office.

There's another element the Kook Left hasn't considered apparently. There's one member of the Bush Administration that the Left hates more than Bush. That is, of course, the Vice President. Should Bush be removed from office by an impeachment trial, who do you suppose would succeed to the office to fill out the remainder of the term?

Of course, the kook fringe probably thinks they've already got enough dirty laundry on Cheney to impeach him, too! It just shows that the Left doesn't give a damn about the nation. Two impeachment trials within two years would tear this country apart. All the Left cares about is their own political agenda. Hating the US as they do, they are ready to fractionalize this nation until we become paralized and equivalent to Portugal, Senegal or Brazil.

So, once again, America has good reason to ignore Maxine Waters and others like her who haven't the common sense to look down the road and see the effects of their political agenda.

Palestinians and the American Press

George Santayana, Spanish-American philosopher, is credited with the axiom that those who don't remember history are forced to repeat it. The contemporary American mass media fall into the category of those who have conveniently forgotten their history in their current apoplexy over the election of Hamas agents to the Palestinian Parliament.

Fear and trembling, of course, make for interesting news. The media would have us believe that the election of Hamas has the world atremble awaiting the authorized invasion of Israel by an army of hooded Palestinian thugs bearing rocket propelled grenades, AK-47s, and suicide vests of explosives. The key word is authorized.

In the view of the media, the US, which they hate, is in a lose-lose situation. The world knows, they maintain, that US support of Israel is at the heart of the War on Terror (read WWIII), al Qaeda, and the difficulties in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and the entire Middle East. The world also knows that the US is the primary supporter of democracy and the establishment of democratic governments throughout this troubled region and the world. The US is reaping the whirlwind of what they have sown, the media claims, because it was a democratic election that saw the terrorist-based organization, Hamas, put into a power position in Palestine. The US cannot denounce such an election, cannot contradict the results, and must live with the consequences of the election because it was conducted within the context of democratic ideals.

Balderdash! History is replete with the democratic election of evil people with vile policies. Most recently, a pseudo-democratic election produced a terrorist as president of Iran. The US is not alone in condemning this crackpot's plan to engage in nuclear power development leading to the ability to produce nuclear weapons.

Perhaps, though, the single most relevant event in the last two centuries was the election in Germany that brought Adolph Hitler and the Nazis to power prior to World War II. The major powers of the world came together to form an alliance to defeat the Axis powers bent on world domination.

The fact that a democratic election produced empowering in Germany and in Palestine of evil people with awful ideals does not mean that the world has to tolerate either the ideals or the people. World War II proved it.

The US has taken the first step in calling for Hamas to disarm and abandon its policy for the destruction of Israel. The world community will, for the most part, concur in that policy. If those two conditions are not met, Hamas will place Palestine in the same court as Nazi Germany.

The American media may be laughing behind their hands at the predicament they suppose the US government finds itself. They have, however, failed to remember their history. As a people, Americans are greatly blessed because they have a government that remembers the salient facts of that history.

Colossal Waste of Time and Money

Leave it to the Federal Government to waste our money and it’s time.

The latest scam involves the United States Senate, and specifically, the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA). He will vote for the confirmation of Samuel A. Alito as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Taking out my crystal ball, I can state with some certainty that Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) will vote against the confirmation. So will Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Charles (Chuckie) Schumer (D-NY), and Russ Feingold (D-WI). Notice a pattern?

Failing a filibuster by Democrats in the Senate, Judge Alito will be confirmed. There are more Republicans in the Senate than Democrats. Unless some weak-kneed Republicans shift sides (as they have done on several recent key votes), Alito will receive a majority of the votes and will be sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts, the last nominee to be skewered in the complete waste of time and money that has become confirmation hearings.

Everybody knows going in what positions the Republicans will take. They also know which way the Democrats will vote. No amount of attempting to skewer a candidate will change any of that. Within the next few days, Ted, Chuckie, and Diane will all announce they’re unable to support Alito’s confirmation. We already know that. Why in the world did everybody spend so much time and taxpayer money over the last three days attempting to get the Judge to tell how he would rule in any given case?

It is grand-standing. The American taxpayer foots the bill so the not-so-loyal opposition can rant, protest, nit-pick, and posture for the special interest groups they represent in front of a national TV audience. And, because everybody knows which way they will vote, the process is absolutely without meaning. Nothing has been disclosed. Judge Alito did not announce his position on any substantive issue. Nobody’s mind was changed. Everybody will vote the way they always vote – along party lines.

What we have endured for these last few days has been a sham and a scam. It is truly a shame that it has cost so much of the taxpayers’ money to put on this mostly objectionable show. We ought to stop it.

The method needs to be changed. Once the appointment is announced, the Senate should be given one month to gather details, staffs read opinions, and Senators appear in sound bites to state their positions. Then, the appointment should stand before the Senate in a simple up or down vote. Majority wins. Full stop. Lots cheaper.

Of course, it won’t change. As long as there are opportunities for politicians to posture, they’ll strut. And, they’ll strut with additional arrogance if they can do it on our dime.
What a shame. What a sham. What a waste.