On the Newfound Outrage and Disappointment of the Left and the Press

Screw Them.

No.  I mean that.  Seriously.

Screw Them.

They REFUSED to see this America-hating empty suit for what he has ALWAYS been.  He told us who he was in lectures, and interviews.  He told us who he is in presumptive and conceited “memoirs” and autobiographies that were in and of themselves, audacious in the belief that a life marked with so little accomplishment in such a short period was somehow worthy of not one, but two tomes dedicated to his self-important navel gazing and intellectual lily-gilding.

And now when he turns the apparatus of Fedzilla loose upon the very people who abdicated their duty to make sure that the electorate knew about the man asking to be made their leader, we’re supposed to share in their outrage?   They were simply late to a party they never thought they’d be invited to. 

I can be happy that they can finally bring themselves to point out their Emperor’s nakedness, but that doesn’t mean that I should or will forgive them for their complacency when it was *only* people like me being targeted by the apparatus of big government lead by a narcissistic popinjay with tyrannical tendencies… or for their refusal to see a pattern of selective enforcement and arbitrary and capricious application of coercion and intimidation.  Or for their ridiculous and insulting focus on people like me who understand the threat to basic Constitutional liberties posed by a government that makes a concerted effort to blame those who oppose overreach combined with a lack of accountability for its failure to completely fulfill its promises to give until it hurts to some from the earnings of others.  Or for their constant attempts to vilify those whose only “offense” was to oppose a government big enough to give them everything they want, because such a government would be big enough to take all we have.

No.  In the face of all the evidence they needed to see this President, and his agenda, and his administration for what it is, and has always been, they chose him anyway, happy to blame those like me for what ails the nation, because they never believed that they would be fed to the alligator.  Welcome to the country you chose.

*walks off whistling Elvis Costello’s ‘Welcome to the Working Week’*

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How Do You Take Your Crow?

Used With Permission.

Hopefully this blog will not survive long term because history will show you to be a fool. A melodramatic and opportunistic one at that.

But don’t worry, I am no fool. If Obama is reelected I know full well you and yours will find some excuse to impeach him. Hopefully it will end like Clinton with you looking purely political and Obama cementing his place among Presidents who left a valuable legacy.

Cheers.

-Rutherford

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I Found Something That Can Be Cut From the Budget…

I was driving home from work the other day, listening to Mark Levin, and an ad came on that had a father helping his little girl learn how to tie her shoes.  After she did it, Tom Selleck came on, and said “Sometimes, the smallest things make the biggest impact in our children’s lives.  Take time to be a Dad.  This message brought to you by fatherhood.gov.”

I couldn’t believe it.  FATHERHOOD.GOV???  It had to be a joke. 

Sadly, it wasn’t. 

I came home and typed www.fatherhood.gov into my computer’s web browser.

One of the graphics I saw was the one above.  Another had a picture of the President with his daughters, and the message below invited me to take the fatherhood pledge.  I paused, choking down the irony of a man who’s only political stands of any import before becoming the President were centered around maintaining abortion, and resisting palliative care for children who survived their mother’s attempts to murder them pressing me to “Take the Fatherhood Pledge”.

Then I scrolled to the bottom of the website, and saw these words:

This is an official U.S. Government Web site managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

The agency that DEMANDS employers provide abortion, abortifacients, and birth control, even when doing so goes against their religious beliefs, and which persists in the fantasy that giving taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood helps poor and low-income women get mammograms actually sponsors a website purporting to teach American men to be better dads.

  With OUR tax money. 

The same government which has managed to destroy the black family, (and has inflicted damage on all families) is now telling men how to be dads.  How is this acceptable?  How is it that the Federal government, even without everything it has done to destroy families, has the right to deign to tell men how to be fathers?  It isn’t the government’s job to tell me how to be a Dad…and the fact that it sees fit to do so with my money simply adds insult to injury.  The family is not the government’s sphere of influence, especially in light of the fact  that there is so little that the government can do efficiently.  This is the embodiment of the concept of government breaking your legs, then putting you in a cast and telling you how lucky you are to have it.  Add to the concept what government has done to make war on the family, and yes, erode parental authority, and there is simply no moral basis which government can stand on to defend this.  And in the meantime, I’m sure this extended middle finger to any parent with a brain is nowhere near the list of things to be cut in the miniscule curtailment in the growth of government known in the White House as SEQUESTERGEDDON!!!111!!!  Not when they can mess with airtravel instead….you know…for the CHIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDRRRREEEEENNNNNNNN!!!!!

I’m sure when my kids are still living in my house when they are 40, dreaming of the day when they can afford to move out to an 800 sq. ft. efficiency apartment all their own, I’m sure that they’ll thank Obama for the usurpation of authority never granted to the government and the deficit spending that make the offensive government lily-guilding like FATHERHOOD.GOV possible.  They’ll have a future full of much diminished prospects, but at least they’ll have the memory of Dad helping them learn to tie their shoes because government told him to do it.

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Unbelievable

You know you’re in the best of hands when your administration hacks can’t even do their homework before they lie to you.

Don’t even get me started on the way he’s holding the gun or where it is pointed.

It’s nice to know they think so little of our intellect.

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Because SHUT UP!, They Keep Saying…

Or two tales of tyranny over talk, both with origins in Caul-i-forn-ya, the land of fruit and nuts, where you can have it all, and your neighbor will be the one billed for it…at least until they move away.

First up is actor Steven Webber, who very recently opined:

The scale of Right Wing sociopolitical sabotage necessitates a Nuremberg-scale trial for all the corporate agents and treasonous capitalisto-fascist architects of our democracy’s current and most pressing misery. From the blatant Republican policy doublespeak emanating from think-tank sponsored word doctors to the outright obstruction and lies expectorated by Republican congressional representatives and senators, the very concept of governance can only be considered once the culprits are removed. Driven to real madness by unadulterated greed they have embraced an ideology, the success of which hinges upon the very ruin of this nation.

Disagree with the party in power?  Then you deserve to be tried and convicted by a jury of those who believe they are your betters.

As an idea, I can’t say it is remarkably original.  Dictators and tyrants have used kangaroo courts for centuries to determine that those who don’t see it their way are silenced.  What makes this funny, while still sad, tragic, and slightly demented is his accusations that Republicans are somehow the pawns of corporate agents and treasonous capitalisto-fascists…and yet says NOTHING about the green energy giveaways to companies that take our money, then go bankrupt, without any consequence to those who profit from it, and his silence on GE’s chummy relationship with the Obama administration.  Still, if he were smart, then he wouldn’t lament the greed of those who want to KEEP their money while turning a blind eye to those who have been actively fomenting the envy and class warfare that have been growing under this administration’s careful husbandry…the envy and class warfare that divide a nation, and empower those who want you to believe that the only reason you don’t have the trappings of wealth are because those that do aren’t transferring enough of their wealth to you.  Still, such attitudes are often hallmarks of the mobocracies that are the end result of democracies like the ones that the President would like to fundamentally transform our republic into. 

The worst part of this is that if you believe in the exponential nature of stupidity, Mr. Dimbulb McPretend-For-A -Living isn’t the only one thinking that freedom he is enjoying shouldn’t be available to others who oppose his views, which is why those of us who have personally witnessed the unfathomable power of stupidity in large groups have no interest in further abrogating our Second Amendment rights, and also understand why we might “NEED” a magazine that holds more than seven rounds, or a firearm that has numerous utilitarian and tactical features.  I suppose we should thank him for displaying his totalitarianism so plainly, and demonstrating progressivism’s fundamental weakness, that being that it will brook no criticism, because when pressed, it cannot be defended, but instead, I’d prefer a lengthy explanation of why he isn’t brave enough to face an opposing viewpoint in the rhetorical arena with argument, or at least a “spirited debate”.  It’s the kind of thing that casts pretty strong doubt on the legitimacy of any of the left’s calls for a “national dialogue” on any exercise of freedom they’d prefer to squelch than see you exercise.  But enough of the visible tyrant looking to intimidate those he’d rather not face, and on to those who are open with their “SHUT UP!”, and try to justify it with a crass emotional pandering that is no friend of logic. 

Recently, professional golfer Phil Mikelson pointed out that the emperor has no clothes, inflaming the minders of the envy class when he mentioned in public that a combined federal and state income tax burden of 62-62% was taking just a bit too much of his earnings and that he might have to move.  Notable for his reaction to this, sports commentator Roland Martin came rushing to government’s rescue with this remark:

 ”But here’s the deal: 98% of the country is saying “Phil, Shut Up.”  They would love to make $40,000,000 a year, they would love to win a golf tournament and make a million bucks.  He was right when he said “I should have kept my criticism to myself.” because he looks like a whiner.  And here’s another piece:  When he goes and plays in a golf tournament, you know what he wants?  He wants people out there to buy tickets to see him play.  He wants them to buy his golf clubs, and the clothes he wears.”

Yes, Roland, he does.  And whether you like it or not, he is a draw.  And as such, people will get paid to park cars for those who will come to see him play.  They will buy concessions from people at the courses.  They will rent local hotel rooms, and eat in local restaurants, and shop in local stores.  I know this.  I witnessed it at the Buick Open at the Warwick Hills Country Club in Grand Blanc for YEARS.  And when he plays well, people will want to buy his clubs, and his clothes, and those will in turn create more jobs.  He might not be a great businessman.  Many pro athletes aren’t.  But if he’s getting sound advice, then he has been told that taxes in excess of 60% are too high.  It takes away his incentive to do all he can in terms of business ventures, because at some point, government thinks he’s just made enough, so it is entitled to take what he’s earned and spend it inefficiently, and give it to groups and causes that he might NEVER decide to spend his own money on, some of which he might he diametrically opposed to. 

But the biggest disappointment is when Mikelson decided that he needed to apologize for speaking the truth.

“My apology is for talking about it publicly, because I shouldn’t take advantage of the forum that I have as a professional golfer to try to ignite change over these issues.”

“I think it was insensitive to talk about it publicly to those people who are not able to find a job, that are struggling paycheck to paycheck,” he said.

Why Phil?  Why does having the public’s attention because you’re a golfer disqualify you from speaking on the very real effects of bad policy decisions?  Why are you under such restraint when actors like Steven Weber and any number of other entertainers aren’t above using their celebrity to offer far less substantial, factual, or reasonable opinions with the clear intent of persuading their audiences.

And the idea that it is somehow insensitive to point out that confiscatory tax policy will lead you to make significant decisions for economic reasons is silly.  While those same people would undoubtedly like to have those problems, it never hurts for them to know that no matter how much money government will take from those “rich” people, it will never create the opportunity, or be multiplied in the same way as that money would if it was left in the economy.   Government may pay you a few more weeks of unemployment, but it can’t create a job that isn’t dependent on taking from someone else.  But the more insidious effect of this type of shutuppery is that while it may silence people like Mikelson, it can’t and won’t stop them from voting with their feet anyway.  And as Caul-i-fornians have been discovering, when enough of the “rich” leave because they’re tired of getting stuck with the check all the time, it doesn’t take long before you learn that you and your neighbors are the “rich”.  This could be avoided if we could have honest “conversations” and “dialogue” about such things, but instead, all we’ll be left with is some cynical pearl clutching, and the increasing cost of the welfare state sucking up opportunity and imposing the equality of misery.

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The Revelation of Unguarded Moments

“Revenge is a confession of pain.” – Latin proverb

“Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.”  -Samuel Johnson

“Revenge is sweeter than life itself. So think fools. [Lat., At vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa nempe hoc indocti.]” - Decimus Junius Juvenal

“Revenge is always the weak pleasure of a little and narrow mind. [Lat., Semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas Ultio.]” – Decimus Junius Jivenal

“By taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing over it, he is superior.” – Unknown

Just when I think that he can’t debase the office any further, President Obama manages to get another stain on the image of the Presidency.  In a speech to followers in New Hampshire, the President stated “No, no, no — don’t boo, vote. Vote! Voting is the best revenge.”

Since then, I have watched the Obama faithful attempt to spin this into another erudite utterance from the 21st Century’s First “Smart Like Spock” President, including this claim that it was actually a brilliant allusion that the doddering idiot Mitt Romney was just too thick to understand.   Having observed the President for four long years now, I find this claim dubious at best, if only because I have a tough time swallowing the idea that a man with such strong anti-colonialist tendencies is such an astute student of English poets. (Although something in the back of my head says “Maybe, but drawing a mental parallel between “lying” and “voting” doesn’t seem like such a leap for him.”)

Instead, I find it more in keeping with the kind of imagery that he has generally used throughout his career…imagery that invokes violent images, and that reveals a base contempt not just for his opponents, but what it means to be American. 

Admittedly, he has occasionally hit the right note in his rhetoric, and this has been enough to influence those who were not already paying attention, or those who chose to see only what they wanted to.  For those people, words like these offered inspiration, and the illusion that the President was a figure of reconciliation in a country with some divisions.  Words like :

But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”>”But at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized – at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do – it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

I can admit that this was the speech that would have DEFINED other Presidents.  The problem is that it was spoken by someone who had already “damaged his witness” with things said in moments when he didn’t believe that everyone would hear him, or when he was not scripted, and spoke from the heart.  They were spoken by a man who had already expressed his disappointment with people who embraced the First and Second Amendments, and were thus “Bitter clingers, clinging to their guns and their religion”.  They were words spoken by a man who spoke of “getting in people’s faces”, and “bringing a gun to a knife fight”.  They were the words spoken by a man who refused to listen to other ideas, because “Elections have consequences” and ” I won”. 

The great miracle of American politics has always been the acceptance of the decision of the electorate by those who would lead them.  Power is a the strongest combination aphrodisiac and narcotic that there is, and it takes a strong man to walk away from it, with the greatest portion of that strength being the knowledge and complete belief that the Republic can only continue if the choice its people makes is accepted with humility, and the good grace to turn the reins over and walk away if told to do so by the voters.  This trait seems to be lacking more and more in the President’s party, and if his rhetoric is any indication, in him himself.  From Gore v. Bush, to the constant admonitions about people “voting against their interests” because the reject the notion that they have to be represented by identities rooted in sex organs, skin colors, ethnicities, and income status, to a rhetorically violent demonization of their opponents, the Democrats seem to be willing to divide, and play the part of Janus, with the words of derision flowing freely from one mouth, and a song of reconciliation flowing from the other.  And the more they talk, the more they reveal.

It really doesn’t matter if the President was trying to use a literary device, or if he really was nursing a grudge against a campaign that offers something he can’t.  Revenge is a word that has no place in American politics, because it fosters a division in the country’s soul that cannot be overcome by competent leadership alone.  This is something understood by another President that Mr. Obama would love to be compared with.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Of course, the assassination of Lincoln put the government on a much different course, and as a result, after a brief respite, the blessing of liberty were denied to the people for whom so much blood was shed to bring to them for nearly another 100 years.  That is something for the President to consider as he faces the prospect of a resounding loss on Tuesday next.

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Heckuva Job, Barry!

Cairo, Bengahzi, Yemen, Tunesia, Sudan, Lebannon…DOMINOES.

It doesn’t matter if we are at war with Islam.  It is at war with us.

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Building a Religion… [UPDATED]

…in which “RACIST!” is the new “Heretic!”

From the new “Keeping the Dream” calendar for sale at the DNC:

Yes, it’s as breathtaking as it is erroneous, but then audacity with humility wouldn’t sell “Hope and Change” either.

I know, I know, Rutherford. “He didn’t publish the calendar. He didn’t have anything to do with it.” And he won’t say anything against it either, because he’s more than a little lost without the adoring crowds of 2008. The true believers will never abandon him, and will never understand why the rest of us are laughing at this kind of stuff.

But then, he won’t be able to see it either, so I guess it will be fitting. This is, of course, the man who once said sin is “Being out of alignment with my values.”

Building a Religion indeed.

UPDATED:

Street vendors across downtown Charlotte are selling posters and artwork depicting President Obama as Jesus Christ and the Democratic National Convention is expected to feature a stained-glass window backdrop during their meeting.

I honestly don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but it certainly isn’t defensible.

And yet I keep hearing that I’m the delusional one.  Whatever.

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A Fitting Response to a “Jobless Recovery”

“If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.” - President Barack Obama on NBC’s “Today,” February 2, 2009.

“Republican voters, if you ask them about my particular policy positions, often agree with me.” – President Barack Obama in PARADE Magazine, August 31, 2012.

I don’t agree with him on much of anything, but then, I actually love America, and understand American Exceptionalism.  That said, I very much agreed with his first quote.  Too bad he reneged on our agreement.  Still, when you have nothing to offer but blame and excuses, rather than results, I can see where you might be so addled that you think that these are adequate bases for renewal of your contract.  However, I think the American people are about to hand you your pink slip.  Don’t view it as a setback, Mr. President.  You didn’t really like the job anyway, and now you can concentrate all of your attention on to your golf game and your third memoir, Car Crash: How I Destroyed A Great Economic Engine While Blaming Those Who Actually Know How To Drive.  That is, of course, if Bombing Billy Ayers will return your calls.  We know that writing is hard and I’m sure he has plenty of flags to step on while reliving the glory days of blowing up government buildings in his head.

So on this Laborless Labor Day, I can think of no better salute to a thin-skinned and ineffective man, who repeatedly has demonstrated a callous disregard to what the office requires, and an inability to man up and take responsibility for his own failures.  Today, on Empty Chair Day 2012,  millions of Americans will reproduce this view from the Oval Office on their own front lawns, just like I am. 

Enjoy retirement, Mr. President.  I hope it is as ignominious as the American People deserve.

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Well, That Makes PERFECT Sense!

Since late in the last Presidential campaign, it has been in vogue for the chatterati and the self-appointed cognoscenti to tell us how any opposition or criticism of Candidate, then President Obama was racist, even in light of many rational and real reasons to dislike and oppose him. 

If anything, this chorus has gotten louder and more shrill, especially since it is getting increasingly difficult to pretend enormous debt incurred for little to no benefit was a good idea, or that the President’s grueling schedule of golf and fund-raisers in a stalled economy where the official (and fictional) unemployment numbers haven’t dipped below the 8% mark for his entire Presidency.  And having to whistle past the graveyard daily is clearly taking its toll on the most fervent water carriers, if Chrissy “Tingles” Matthews’ latest psychotic break from reality is any indication.  The situation has deteriorated to the point that the President either needs to plan a getaway for he and Tingles, so Chrissy can fulfill all of his fantasies for he and “the perfect President”, or the President needs to get a restraining order and authorize the Secret Service to shoot him on sight.

But when I saw this earlier this morning, it really drove home the projection and hypocrisy that has underscored the blatant racism of the people who have been screaming the loudest about the “racism” of Obama opponents.

I’m sorry that I had to waste 2:29 of your life that you’ll never get back.  But I think you probably get it now, too.  That nagging fact that we all witnessed, but people didn’t want to talk about: that hundreds of thousands of people voted for him not because of his great record (he has the thinnest resume of any President ever), not because of his comprehensive plans to fix the economy (paying of big donors and bundlers with taxpayer money and spendulous cash frittered away with pure undistilled bullshit about jobs “saved or created” is not a plan), but because he is BLACK, making his election somehow “historic” and “unprecedented”, two descriptions that history will also use, but not in a favorable way.

This has been observed before, in various places and forms that all essentially match this bumpersticker wisdom:

If you voted for Obama last time to prove that you aren’t a racist, vote for Romney this time to prove that you’re not an idiot.

I’ve gotten to the point where statements like this leave me torn between a laugh and a tear.  It might be truly funny if it wasn’t so damn tragic.  I don’t know who I blame more…racists like Charles “Sex Machine” Blow, Eugene Robinson, Juan Williams, or those white liberals who think that black Americans are so incapable of making it on their own that they have to step in, and make the way for them…like all of NBC news, PBS, and the Democratic Party.   You know the ones.  They are the ones who keep telling us how blacks can’t.  How they can’t find a job without government.  How they can’t keep a job without government.  How they can’t make it without government even if they have a job.  How they can’t ever have a business of their own without government.  How they can’t get into college without government lowering the standards and expectations for them.  And then set out to prove it. 

Increasingly, I find that my overall irritation factor is turned up to 11 as this campaign season progresses.  This is a condition made worse by the fact that these shrill carnival barkers are half-right, and refuse to be honest with themselves or the rest of us about it.  Race is a factor in this campaign, just as it was in the last one.  But it is the largest factor to the ones screaming loudest about it.  But we also have been chided about avoiding a frank discussion of this factor, by someone who himself has chosen to hide from difficult questions and scrutiny behind the specious and unprovable claim of “RACISM!”.

Contrary to the opinion so often on the lips of the President’s biggest cheerleaders, I do find it sad that the first black American President is such a failure, and that such a milestone has to be tainted in that fashion.  I also find it sad that instead of being a man of character who overcomes race, he so eagerly uses it as a tool to divide, rather than unite.  The wasted potential is a tragedy beyond measure.

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