Of Bomb Shelters, Ice Ages and Pandemics

Ask Americans living in the South of a certain age and they can tell you tales of hysteria. I was six when the Cuban Missil e Crisis emerged. I lived in Odessa, Texas, smack in the middle of the Permian Oil Field. Although at the edge of the project limits of missiles being sneaked onto Cuban soil by the Russians, the fear was palpable. The idyllic childhood of wandering the neighborhood for a short time shifted to parents needing to know EXACTLY where you were....in case. 

My six year old mind didn't have the life experience to construct what "in case" actually meant. My Dad, a WWII veteran of the Occupation of Japan had seen actual death. Little was said about the Japanese snipers picking off American personnel after Hirohito surrendered, but I know my Dad, then 19 years old and from a small Texas town, saw enough that he would have been labeled as having PTSD today. My Dad sent for plans to build a bombshelter in our backyard. He told me it was a clubhouse but I could read the plans. Luckily the crisis resolved. But we still had drills every year for the rest of the time I was in school.

Flash forward ten to fifteen years. We lived in Dallas. I attended high school. Some kids in the school were embracing attitudes of rebellion. We had multiple bomb scares my last two years of high school. A cousin of mine was in college when Weather Underground blew up a lab. Vietnam and the incessant imagery pushed on the evening news made the war there seem dire and imminent. The aftermath of political intrigue forced people to take sides while still embracing the veneer of social civility.

Books like "The Late Great Planet Earth" and odd/even gas lines pushed a panic harder. Some adamantly demanded immediate change without any evidence the changes they asked for would even effect the change needed. People began to panic. They bought dangerous cars and took ridiculous risks based on their level of acceptance of the veracity of the crises presented every day on the evening news.

This hysteria led to others. Water, air and food became suspect. We were told sugar, salt, fat, red meat and non GMO vegetables were dangerous, often without any validity. And often the preachers of these new dogmas had a vested interest in getting people to avoid these Some people went completely off the rails seeking religions or charismatic charlatans to fulfill their lives and cancel their sense of dread.

First there was Desert Storm. I remember packing a box with my kids to be sent to military personnel for the holidays. One colonel sent back a Blphoto of the camel he had to ride to surveil forward areas. The public was engaged, fearful that the previous atrocities such as the Achille Lauro and the bombing of the barracks wouldn't happen closer to home. Again much of the mentality was to protect the homefront. We wanted to keep families safe. We wanted to keep danger far away.

Then there was 9/11. And Katrina. And Super Storm Sandy. Danger from violence and nature were at our doors. Instead of addressing the actual needs, media and politicians used these opportunities to garner support. I'm sure people in NYC still remember 9/11 and don't understand why people in government seem to be on an increasing path to cloud that memory. I'm sure people in New Orleans remember Katrina and think the same. No doubt places like Port Aransas and Houston think similar things about Hurricane Harvey and the California folks feel the same sense of dread over their fire seasons of the past few years. What all these catastrophes share is a combination of natural disaster paired with people attempting to use the opportunities to shape political opinions. The media has created this mindset of constant panic because it makes the media a necessary means of finding out what was "really going on."

But was the media telling the whole story? Did they tell an entirely accurate story by telling public that George Bush had the levees bombed to inundate the Ninth Ward of NOLA? Did they tell the truth when they ignore the desertification of the California Central Valley to provide water for coastal elite's lush lifestyles? If the media has cultivated a need for the Public to listen, they also hold an enormous amount of power to sway public opinion using images and cherrypicking facts for specific goals. This cynical approach to using the Public by only telling some of the truth instead of all of it, has created a monster.

Today, too many people are tied to whatever curated slate of information strokes their personal views. Few read opposing views and social media has become more or less a big street fight with some at the top egging on others while social media heads decide whose voice is worthy and whose is not. This is where we are. And depending on who you believe, you are either out and about without a mask or you are huddled in your home masking even while you sleep.

Some states have lifted the requirements to mask. That is their choice. My own state Texas has done so much to my relief. While I won't vilify someone who chooses to mask, masks only made my asthma and coughing worse. I've had COVID. I've had both shots. I have no symptoms and frankly I don't believe the entire asymptomatic claims were valid and I think they'll be stashed away under the heading of unfounded suspicions. While you are free to cover up your face, there is no reason for me to cover mine. We used to be a nation founded on freedom and autonomy. Why are we letting petty tyrants stampeded us into hysteria? That is what this has become-a year of operant conditioning in order to create hysteria and make it easy to pick off the non-compliant. 

Is this what you want for your children and grandchildren? Snap out of it. Or get counseling.

Read this

This Toxic Election

Here's an email I sent to a local talk radio station. While the host is conservative, he's troubled by the same things that trouble me. How have we gotten to this position with two of the most despicable candidates imaginable? I believe the media set us up. At any rate, this is my email to him. I believe it resonates with what many middle class Americans are feeling.

PS. I predict one of the lowest voter turnouts ever. People are just simply disgusted.

"What you're talking about tonight is a topic my husband and I have discussed for over a year. It's truly ironic that Trump finds himself on the other side of a smear campaign after how he shoved Ted Cruz out of the race by using the friendship with National Inquirer's owner to allege a series of deliberate lies. It comes out as Trump being able to dish it out, but not take it. To be fair, my guy was always Ted Cruz due to his brilliance on policy. Also, my husband is a true gentleman who has protected women from predators at his former job and who despises men that act like cads. That the media tries to make all conservatives into Neanderthals is despicable. My husband supports Trump because the media has given us no options. I have opposed Trump and he's not making my husband's attempt to change my mind any easier.

Please don't get me wrong. I believe Hillary Clinton is a horrible person. She is a traitor, she is a thief, she is a liar and she will take this nation down the path to destruction. Any of the other 17 candidates could have taken her down handily because frankly the people in this nation see the damage done by unchecked far left policies. So ask yourself, how come Trump won? He won because the MEDIA lapped up and promoted him as the next new thing. They glossed over his history-which was tarnished long before he entered the race-and indeed attacked anyone who opposed him. What was the lead story in every newscast during the primary season? It was always Trump and his word was golden. So when he claimed that Ted Cruz set up other candidates, Trump's much louder voice drowned out the voices of reason. As a result the best conservative running was not just forced to step down for the safety of his family, but was reviled by the same party leadership that now are shunning Trump. What gives?

Here's how I see it. Trump was never going to win. He's big buddies with the Clintons and indeed has far more in common policy wise with them and their money man George Soros than average Americans. I believe the Clintons knew Hillary was in political trouble. They knew that without a cover story to hide behind, the Wikileaks stories would haunt her. The Clintons have always believed "it's her turn" and seem clueless on the fact that at 70, Hillary Clinton is not in any shape for the rigors of the position. So who will be calling the shots? I believe it's a consortium of those who have given the Clintons millions over the years. They will make decisions that benefit the Buffets (ex. the use of railway over pipeline for oil tar sands transport) and Gates and Soros' of the world at the expense of the rest of us. Her leak on desiring completely open borders should be a signal that this woman has no intent in helping American workers who are already at one of the lowest participation rates in 100 years. So they set up Trump to run against her knowing that he would behave in outrageous fashion to make Clinton appear a valid choice.

The truth is neither are valid choices. Both are toxic. Clinton has undisclosed medical issues and Trump is a walking ad for a stroke. No matter who wins I doubt either of them survive the four years. So we have to look to the VP candidates. Kaine is a wash. Nobody knows him outside the east coast that the few that do don't like him. He has a reputation of being a "difficult" person. Pence on the other hand has a reputation as a builder. He is someone I can support. So when I vote, as an American, as a woman, I will vote for the Republican ticket-but only because I believe ultimately Pence will be in charge.

Just my thoughts,

Please don't use my whole name as I'm a teacher and frankly I'm not too sure what kind of havoc my opinions would produce"

Where Do Seals Go To Get Their Reputations Back?

“…Three Navy SEALs who faced courts-martial for allegedly abusing a terrorist and covering up the incident should be asking these questions. Last week, a military jury delivered the same verdict for Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe that two previous juries had given Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas and Petty Officer 2nd Class Jonathan Keefe — not guilty.
The charges against the three elite SEALs stemmed from the apprehension of Ahmed Hashim Abed in a daring nighttime raid in Iraq last September. Abed is believed to have led the ambush of a convoy in Fallujah in 2004, during which insurgents pulled four American military contractors — one a former SEAL — from their vehicles, brutally beat them to death, mutilated their bodies and hung the corpses from a bridge over the Euphrates River.
McCabe was charged for — if you have a delicate constitution, stop reading here — striking Abed once in the midsection while he was in the SEALs' custody. Huertas and Keefe were charged with dereliction of duty for failing to prevent the alleged abuse and impeding the investigation into it.
In the civilian world, these charges don't sound like much. In the world of the SEALs, they lead to dead-end careers.
That was implicit in the offer from military brass scared stiff by the Obama administration's political correctness: acknowledge guilt and accept ruinous administrative punishment, or take your chances with a court-martial and end up in the brig. The SEALs, men of honor, chose to defend their names and try to continue serving the nation in the Special Operations Forces…’

Such is the situation in our point of history that the words of criminals hold more validity than those of the highly trained professionals who are paid to control them. Police, Security, Military personnel are all held in every facet of pop culture to be corrupt and inherently evil. This is political correctness at its worst. And it is being allowed to infect every facet of our lives.
Consider the Ft. Hood Massacre (no doubt that term will be downgraded to the more politically palatable “Shooting” before he goes to trial) Several people noticed Hassan’s erratically skewed Islamist outbursts. But nobody in the military command dared to breathe a word of their suspicions. Such is the nature of political correctness that we have driven a wedge between those that administer military programs and those who must act on those commands. There was a point in time where the front line personnel had reason to expect support from their commanders. But instead of military personnel in the Pentagon, we have creatures in uniform who seem far more concerned with their own careers than the safety and support of the front line personnel.
Make no mistake, this situation was not another Abu Ghraib, although no doubt that situation in a small way made this one possible. Then men accused in this case were not poor infantry personnel trained mainly to shoot and be shot at. Navy Seals are among the military’s elite services. They are highly trained in all matters military as well as the political expectations governing their actions. They act on black ops with full knowledge of the military and political implications of their actions. For the military to take the word of an avowed and captured terrorist over the reports of such highly trained personnel is the worst type of pandering to the powers of political correctness.
So where do these Navy Seals go to get their reputations back? Although exonerated, this court martial’s history will be a blot on their jackets. Such situations are career-enders. In addition, because of the highly skilled nature of their training, these men in normal circumstances would form the power elite at the upper echelons of command down the road. But that path is doubtful now due to a military upper command that is far more concerned with their polling than the actions and support of their personnel. I would hope that these men, having seen the worst of what a PC attitude can do will come into the public domain as candidates and advocates. They can testify on how far afield our country has flown from the solid application of Constitutional goals over interpretation.
If you look around you, this pandering to political correctness is responsible for many of the issues we face. We are not allowed to condemn those who come here illegally. We are not permitted to question the wisdom of gaming the system to get the most from the Welfare State without being branded as wrong. This court martial was just one case where we see an effort to vilify those who defend us by the very same people who would gladly sell the American people out for a few diplomatic dinners. We cannot allow this to continue. When you vote this year, remember how a regime of political correctness nearly sent good men to prison on a trumped up charge. And then remember who runs the show.

Media Bias: A Writer's Personal Angst

I don't usually post things in their entirety. But this is such an important topic and ABC has such a history of burying stories that make them seem unbalanced or unAmerican, that I felt it needed to be recorded somewhere. I have include the link to the story in the title.

"Media's Presidential Bias and Decline

Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons Why

Column By MICHAEL S. MALONE

Oct. 24, 2008 —

The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game -- with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates.

The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.

But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist.

You need to understand how painful this is for me. I am one of those people who truly bleeds ink when I'm cut. I am a fourth-generation newspaperman. As family history tells it, my great-grandfather was a newspaper editor in Abilene, Kan., during the last of the cowboy days, then moved to Oregon to help start the Oregon Journal (now the Oregonian).

My hard-living -- and when I knew her, scary -- grandmother was one of the first women reporters for the Los Angeles Times. And my father, though profoundly dyslexic, followed a long career in intelligence to finish his life (thanks to word processors and spellcheckers) as a very successful freelance writer. I've spent 30 years in every part of journalism, from beat reporter to magazine editor. And my oldest son, following in the family business, so to speak, earned his first national byline before he earned his drivers license.

So, when I say I'm deeply ashamed right now to be called a "journalist," you can imagine just how deep that cuts into my soul.

Now, of course, there's always been bias in the media. Human beings are biased, so the work they do, including reporting, is inevitably colored. Hell, I can show you 10 different ways to color variations of the word "said" -- muttered, shouted, announced, reluctantly replied, responded, etc. -- to influence the way a reader will apprehend exactly the same quote. We all learn that in Reporting 101, or at least in the first few weeks working in a newsroom.

But what we are also supposed to learn during that same apprenticeship is to recognize the dangerous power of that technique, and many others, and develop built-in alarms against them.

But even more important, we are also supposed to be taught that even though there is no such thing as pure, Platonic objectivity in reporting, we are to spend our careers struggling to approach that ideal as closely as possible.

That means constantly challenging our own prejudices, systematically presenting opposing views and never, ever burying stories that contradict our own world views or challenge people or institutions we admire. If we can't achieve Olympian detachment, than at least we can recognize human frailty -- especially in ourselves.

Reporting Bias

For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy.

Sure, being a child of the '60s I saw a lot of subjective "New" Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from "real" reporting, and, at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased.

But my complacent faith in my peers first began to be shaken when some of the most admired journalists in the country were exposed as plagiarists, or worse, accused of making up stories from whole cloth.

I'd spent my entire professional career scrupulously pounding out endless dreary footnotes and double-checking sources to make sure that I never got accused of lying or stealing someone else's work -- not out of any native honesty, but out of fear: I'd always been told to fake or steal a story was a firing offense & indeed, it meant being blackballed out of the profession.

And yet, few of those worthies ever seemed to get fired for their crimes -- and if they did they were soon rehired into even more prestigious jobs. It seemed as if there were two sets of rules: one for us workaday journalists toiling out in the sticks, and another for folks who'd managed, through talent or deceit, to make it to the national level.

Meanwhile, I watched with disbelief as the nation's leading newspapers, many of whom I'd written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.

But what really shattered my faith -- and I know the day and place where it happened -- was the war in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia, only carried CNN, a network I'd already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse.

I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story & but it never happened.

The Presidential Campaign

But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.

Republicans are justifiably foaming at the mouth over the sheer one-sidedness of the press coverage of the two candidates and their running mates. But in the last few days, even Democrats, who have been gloating over the pass -- no, make that shameless support -- they've gotten from the press, are starting to get uncomfortable as they realize that no one wins in the long run when we don't have a free and fair press.

I was one of the first people in the traditional media to call for the firing of Dan Rather -- not because of his phony story, but because he refused to admit his mistake -- but, bless him, even Gunga Dan thinks the media is one-sided in this election.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play.

The few instances where I think the press has gone too far -- such as the Times reporter talking to prospective first lady Cindy McCain's daughter's MySpace friends -- can easily be solved with a few newsroom smackdowns and temporary repostings to the Omaha bureau.

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.

That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.

Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?

Joe the Plumber

The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber.

Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by.

I learned a long time ago that when people or institutions begin to behave in a matter that seems to be entirely against their own interests, it's because we don't understand what their motives really are. It would seem that by so exposing their biases and betting everything on one candidate over another, the traditional media is trying to commit suicide -- especially when, given our currently volatile world and economy, the chances of a successful Obama presidency, indeed any presidency, is probably less than 50/50.

Furthermore, I also happen to believe that most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes & and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's. That's what reporters do. I was proud to have been one, and I'm still drawn to a good story, any good story, like a shark to blood in the water.

So why weren't those legions of hungry reporters set loose on the Obama campaign? Who are the real villains in this story of mainstream media betrayal?

The editors. The men and women you don't see; the people who not only decide what goes in the paper, but what doesn't; the managers who give the reporters their assignments and lay out the editorial pages. They are the real culprits.

Bad Editors

Why? I think I know, because had my life taken a different path, I could have been one: Picture yourself in your 50s in a job where you've spent 30 years working your way to the top, to the cockpit of power & only to discover that you're presiding over a dying industry. The Internet and alternative media are stealing your readers, your advertisers and your top young talent. Many of your peers shrewdly took golden parachutes and disappeared. Your job doesn't have anywhere near the power and influence it did when your started your climb. The Newspaper Guild is too weak to protect you any more, and there is a very good chance you'll lose your job before you cross that finish line, 10 years hence, of retirement and a pension.

In other words, you are facing career catastrophe -- and desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if you have to risk everything on a single Hail Mary play. Even if you have to compromise the principles that got you here. After all, newspapers and network news are doomed anyway -- all that counts is keeping them on life support until you can retire.

And then the opportunity presents itself -- an attractive young candidate whose politics likely matches yours, but more important, he offers the prospect of a transformed Washington with the power to fix everything that has gone wrong in your career.

With luck, this monolithic, single-party government will crush the alternative media via a revived fairness doctrine, re-invigorate unions by getting rid of secret votes, and just maybe be beholden to people like you in the traditional media for getting it there.

And besides, you tell yourself, it's all for the good of the country &

This is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.

Michael S. Malone is one of the nation's best-known technology writers. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 25 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury News as the nation's first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He was editor of Forbes ASAP, the world's largest-circulation business-tech magazine, at the height of the dot-com boom. Malone is the author or co-author of a dozen books, notably the best-selling "Virtual Corporation." Malone has also hosted three public television interview series, and most recently co-produced the celebrated PBS miniseries on social entrepreneurs, "The New Heroes." He has been the ABCNews.com "Silicon Insider" columnist since 2000."

Another View of Rev. Wright's Foot In Mouth Situation

I came across this online and thought that excerpts might be interesting to folks. This does have quite a bit to do with how Mr. Obama approaches issues and says a great deal about what his idea of equality might be. Don't you know HIllary's operatives are combing every piece of footage they can find on Rev. Wrights diatribes (I won't honor them by calling them sermons because sermons are about faith and this is partisan politics plain and simple.)
Entire article here.

"The Obama Crash and Burn
If he acts as if the Wright controversy is behind him, it's over for Obama.

By Victor Davis Hanson

The latest polls reflecting Obama’s near-collapse should serve as a morality tale of John Edwards’s two Americas — the political obtuseness of the intellectual elite juxtaposed to the common sense of the working classes.

For some bizarre reason, Obama aimed his speech at winning praise from National Public Radio, the New York Times, and Harvard, and solidifying an already 90-percent solid African-American base — while apparently insulting the intelligence of everyone else.

Indeed, the more op-eds and pundits praised the courage of Barack Obama, the more the polls showed that there was a growing distrust that the eloquent and inspirational candidate has used his great gifts, in the end, to excuse the inexcusable.

The speech and Obama’s subsequent interviews neither explained his disastrous association with Wright, nor dared open up a true discussion of race — which by needs would have to include, in addition to white racism, taboo subjects ranging from disproportionate illegitimacy and drug usage to higher-than-average criminality to disturbing values espoused in rap music and unaddressed anti-Semitism. We learn now that Obama is the last person who wants to end the establishment notion that a few elite African Americans negotiate with liberal white America over the terms of grievance and entitlement — without which all of us really would be transracial persons, in which happiness and gloom hinge, and are seen to do so, on one’s own individual success or failure.

Instead there were the tired platitudes, evasions, and politicking. The intelligentsia is well aware of how postmodern cultural equivalence, black liberation theory, and moral relativism seeped into Obama’s speech, and thus was not offended by an “everybody does it” and “who’s to judge?/eye of the beholder” defense. But to most others the effect was Clintonian...."

"...The more the pundits gushed about the speech, the more the average Americans thought, “Wait a minute — did he just say what I thought he said?” It’s not lost on Joe Q. Public that Obama justified Wright’s racism by offering us a “landmark” speech on race that:

(1) Compared Wright’s felony to the misdemeanors of his grandmother, Geraldine Ferraro, the Reagan Coalition, corporate culture, and the kitchen sink.

(2) Established the precedent that context excuses everything, in the sense that what good a Wright did (or an Imus did) in the past outweighs any racist outburst of the present.

(3) Claimed that the voice of the oppressed is not to be judged by the same rules of censure as the dominant majority that has no similar claim on victim status.

What is happening, ever so slowly, is that the public is beginning to realize that it knows even less after the speech than it did before about what exactly Obama knew (and when) about Wright’s racism and hatred. .."

Politics as Usual

When did we get to the point that the style of the candidate superseded their substance? Right now we have liberals who are pointing fingers at each other and conservatives that seem equally intent on tripping up their rivals within the party. For the majority of us who are not political animals and who don't live for the subtle dagger of defamation, this has been a primary season that has left us all just a little woozy and the worse for wear. I consider myself a conservative. Not a die at all costs conservative. Not a one issue and I am done conservative, but a TRUE conservative. I think people should work for what they get. I think the military is there to defend our borders. I think that citizens should have the right to jobs, education and social welfare before we start giving away goods across the border or around the world. I think the government, like my family, should have to live within their own means. I don't want the government telling me what to do, what to wear or what to think. I don't want them meddling in my church and a surely don't want my church mixing it up with politicians. In short, I want old school constitutional justice and a Congress that understands the need for individuals to be accountable for their actions. And, right now I am considering voting for a Democrat.

Strange, you say? Not really. There's pretty clear evidence that the MainStreamMedia has gone out of its way to pump up the volume on the partisan rhetoric since 9/11. That has resulted in a variety of whispering campaigns that not only divide our nation into political regions, but that divides groups within these areas from each other. What used to be spicy, but liveable cocktail party banter has become a situation where you must tread on eggshell any place except home. And yet the vocal bullies on both sides try to sway and intimidate through a series of politically inspired antics that just leave a sour taste in my mouth. So the media has a great deal to answer for, including the unbelievable hype given to the early primaries. The anticipation of financial gain from such early voting led Florida and Michigan to move up their primaries, only to have their hands slapped by the DNC. So do you really think the DNC will deny entry and credentials of delegates from these two very important states? Or will Clinton's gamble to show up and "campaign" outside the realm of the acceptable primaries win her the nomination? And what of the Republicans. Several qualified candidates with measured and descriptive positions and platforms were ignored by a media that seems intent on choosing the nominee for the party by ignoring other contenders. And, not surprisingly, the Republican they support is the most liberal of the bunch. There's already talk of people simply staying home. And this could signal both a Democrat gain in the White House and a Democrat political bloodbath two years later in the midterms when "nice thoughts and pleasant behavior" doesn't produce magical changes in the way things are progressing domestically or internationally.

So, what to do?
Here's my plan. I do not trust Hillary Clinton. I think she's damaged goods with a mean streak that will lead to vindictive leadership in Congress. Punishing ones political opponents is not part of the job of President. I think John McCain is far more liberal and could probably run as a Democrat given his public stances on immigration and other topics. He's running on his legacy as a POW. And I admire his courage at that time BUT, that doesn't make him good for the position. In addition, he has a reputation for being very angry, very brusque and unwilling to admit his mistakes. If he was elected, he would enact most of the liberal agenda. But when that didn't work, the MSM and the pundits would still blame the Republicans-heck they will probably still blame President Bush-and nothing will change. The Congress would still be producing programs that we can't pay for and bills loaded with hidden earmarks that never make the light of day in discussion of their passage. The odd man out is Obama. Sure, he's liberal. But he is a former professor of constitutional law, which means he's studied the thing and knows the limits of power. He's not particularly tied to any one group of zealots such as Moveon.org or such. I am sure he would still push for a more liberal social agenda, but with a more measured eye towards the endgame. And if his agenda failed, the MSM could not blame Republicans and the midterms would give us an entire new Congress.

So it could be a rough couple of years boys and girls. Hold on to your hats, watch your backs and for God's sake, stop registering your guns, because that's the first thing they are going to pass.

Media Bias: CNN Plants a Story

I sent the following message to the Dallas Fox affiliate, but I feel like this message needs to go beyond our immediate area. People who have political gains tied to the use of the votes of those here illegally are pushing the Reconquista ideology via such outlets as CNN and the New York Times. I happen to live near this town. I have seen its demographics change from a nice middle income community to one that has become a logistical nightmare of gang activity. And I am sorry if this offends, but much of it is due to criminal behavior that is in part due to the unwillingness of those here illegally to report crime and the overwhelming amount of people here illegally who commit crime becuase they are virtually invisible to the agencies that track crime. So when you see this story and other like on CNN, remember that the Reconquista movement has some very adept and powerful media people in their corner. And it thie political stars should happen to come into alignment, then theyse same folks are more than willing to look the other way and to let the American middle class bear the brunt of the higher taxation, higher crime and lower return in receipts for their trouble. And I am sorry if this offends, because we have had people from 37 nations arrested in the ICE details that are related to this story. But strangely enough, it just seems to be the people from Mexico that protest. I just seems to be the people from Mexico that demand favors that other nationalities don't request. What makes them so special? I love the Mexican culture, the food and their people, but just as I cannot cross into their country and live illegally, neither should they do that here. There are such things as limits.

The Video is Here

"That is the link for a video about an Irving illegal immigrant "self deporting." I don't usually watch CNN, but happened on this story while I was grading at school. I find it to be so well placed, that I am pretty sure this is a set up. He's married to someone here legally, but can't fill out the paperwork because it's "too hard." Didn't Mattel pull a shipload of Barbies because they said "math is hard?" Isn't that like saying if something is too hard, that you just should give up? Do you think he gives up when he fills out employment forms, or forms for assistance through the schools for his kids? I bet he gets those in. But something as minor as legal residency? Bueno por nada. In addition, it goes on about how shabby Mexico is and how he can't figure out the money. Excuse me, he speaks Spanish and can't ask how much something costs and then look at the currency and turn that over??? I think this is an obvious placement for political gain and it's no surprise that this story is on CNN. I thought you would be interested."